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MAX  WEBEIt 


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LIEKARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


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822  02254  9604 

ESSAYS  ON  ART 


MAX  WEBER 

Author  of  Cubist  Poems 


Social  Sciences  &  Humanities  Library 

University  of  Califomia,  San  Diego 
Please  Note:  This  item  is  subject  to  recall. 

Date  Due 

QFD   1  Q  1007 

Our   1  0  \\i\jf 

StH  13  199B 

CI  39  (2/95)                                                                        UCSDLib. 

The  University  Library 

University  of  California,  San  Diego 

La  Jolla,  California 

From  Thfl 

LIBRARY 

Of 

PROFESSOR 
URIEL  WEINREICH 


Copyright,  1916,  by 

MAX  WEBER 
Published  June,  1916 


Printed  by 

William  Edwin  Riidge 

na  William  Street 

New  York 


Contents 


Page 

PREFACE  -  -  -  .  5 


Essays  on  Art 


QUALITY                    -  -                     -  -          7 

SPIRITUAL  TACTILITY  -                     -                     -  13 

TRADITION  AND  NOW  -                     -  -         17 

MEANS               -  -                     -                     -  25 

THINGS                       -  -                     -  -        31 

PREPARING  TO  SEE  -                     .                     .  37 

THE   URGE  IN  ART  -                     -  -        41 

REVELATION  ...  47 

ART  CONSCIOUSNESS  -                     -  -        51 

PURITY  IN  ART  .                     .                     .  gl 

THE  EQUILIBRIUM  OF  THE  INANIMATE  -        67 

ART  PURPOSE  ...  73 


\ 


HESE  essays  were  written  in  the  autumn 
of  1914  as  part  of  a  series  of  talks  on  art 
apjjreciation.  In  committing  them  to 
writing,  my  purpose  was  to  help  the 
student  to  recognize  and  to  live  the  prin- 
ciples of  art  and  to  apply  them  in  his  work  according 
to  his  own  discernment.  I  am  happy  to  be  able  now, 
to  give  these  short  essays  a  wider  field  in  the  hope  that 
they  may  help  to  foster  the  love  of  art  and  its  signifi- 
cance in  life. 

At  no  better  time  than  this,  could  I  express  my 
appreciation  of  the  encouragement  given  to  me  to  write, 
by  my  friend,  Leonard  Van  Noppen,  whose  wise  counsel 
I  gratefully  acknowledge. 

M.  W. 


Quality 


NE  of  the  most  spiritual  and  significant 
phases  of  quaUty  is  intimacy.  It  is  a 
state  of  awareness,  of  knowledge,  of  the 
presence  of  things  outside  of  ourselves; 
we  mean  here,  inanimate  things.  Any- 
thing that  has  been  shaped  or  constructed  pos- 
sesses a  part  of  the  life  of  the  maker  of  that  thing. 
It  is  that  of  his  life  which  makes  the  existence 
of  that  thing  possible.  The  maker  lives  in  the  things 
he  makes.  Even  his  tool  becomes  warm  in  his  hand 
and  palpitates  with  his  very  pulse.  Then  too,  the 
moment  I  behold  an  object,  an  art  work,  it  becomes  more 
that  very  moment,  for  I  put  part  of  myself  into  it  along 
with  the  life  of  its  maker.  For  matter  is  of  more 
worth  when  it  is  embodied  with  the  spirit  of  the  maker. 
A  work  binds  its  maker  to  the  universe.  Though  the 
maker  cease  to  be,  the  work  he  has  created  keeps  on 
pulsating  and  rhymes  his  personality  on  on  into  infinity. 
Often  it  occurs  to  me  that  objects  of  quality  wait 
for  us;  and  when  once  we  succeed  in  knowing  it 
intimately,  the  object  is  more  and  we  are  more  because 
of  each  other,  or  because  art  chooses  us.  It  seems  to 
me  one  of  the  most  important  functions  of  our 
daily  breathing  or  living,  this  spiritual  communion  with 
objects  —  with    works    of    art.      We    pray    in    belief, 


[    7   ] 


but  this  art  consciousness  or  plastic  consciousness  is 
belief  in  proof.  The  reality  of  art  is  its  mystery.  This 
brings  us  back  to  the  principles  of  taste,  mainly  the 
power  to  discern  through  knowledge  or  by  instinct. 

(Both  are  plastically  intellectual,  i.  e.  — 
Using  the  hand-mind ; 
I,     •    \  Using  the  eye-mind ; 

^  j         Using    the    feeling    mind,    or    the 

(^  emotion. 

A  way  to  commune  with  the  unknown  is  to  imagine 
one's  self  being  in  the  unknown.  To  find  the  quality 
in  a  work  one  must  invest  it  with  personal  quality 
already  acquired  by  him,  the  spectator  or  student.  One's 
own  quality  will  draw  forth,  will  call  out,  will  attract 
or  magnetize  the  yet  unseen  quality  in  a  work.  This 
is  almost  as  true  of  the  spiritual  as  of  the  physical.  To 
perceive  quality  is  to  possess  quality.  And  even  when 
we  find  quality  in  works,  then  the  process  of  assimilation 
must  begin.  Food  must  first  be  digested.  Simply  to 
possess  it  one  might  starve.  To  possess  art  is  to  live  it. 
It  enhances  every  human  faculty. 

Analysis  is  more  the  act  of  the  spectator;  synthesis 
more  with  the  creator.  Appreciation  is  an  analytic 
function  —  it  is  placid.  Creation  is  synthetic  —  is 
the  active  participating.  There  are  infinite  avenues  to 
the  understanding  of  quality  in  a  work.  Its  means, 
what  is  commonly  called  technique,  may  be  said  to  be 
the  mechanical  side;  its  construction,  its  material 
side  —  the  concrete.  Then  there  are  the  qualities 
abstract.  That  which,  regardless  even  of  means, 
makes  for  rarity,  for  distinction;  its  intensity  to  evoke 
and  to  empower,  or  overwhelm,  its  spirit.    Or  it  is  that 

[    8    1 


indescribable  something  that  makes  for  quahty  —  that 
something  which  is  in  a  work  of  art  independent  of  its 
means  —  we  might  call  it  the  soul  of  a  work.  That 
quality  which  is  beyond  words  —  it  is  feeling.  Or  too 
we  might  call  it  the  artist  or  maker  in  the  work. 

The  building  is  the  architect,  the  picture  is  the  artist, 
the  symphony  is  the  composer,  the  poem  the  poet. 
Not  as  some  would  have  us  believe  that  it  is  the 
dress  or  the  mannerism  that  makes  the  artist.  Detect- 
ing or  sensing  quality  in  a  work  of  art  is  like  finding 
an  answer  to  one's  seeking  self.  Such  consciousness 
of  growth  is  the  great  revelation  in  life.  It  is 
then  that  we  feel  our  relationship  to  this  great  universe. 
It  is  this  revelation  which  makes  for  that  inquiry  so 
essential  to  higher  achievement  and  for  better  under- 
standing and  which  therefore  means  a  fuller  and  more 
inclusive  life. 

Finding  finds  and  the  found  always  seeks  for  more. 
That  which  makes  for  individual  art  is  in  a  whole  people, 
but  it  is  he  who  can  best  reveal  and  voice  that  which 
would  otherwise  lie  dormant  in  a  people  who  is  the 
artist.  And  the  people  find  themselves  in  their  great 
artists.  The  environment,  religion,  tradition,  the  very 
physical  features  of  the  country  of  a  people,  determine 
to  a  large  degree  the  character  of  their  art.  Natural 
adaptability,  sequence  of  time,  thought  and  substance 
make  for  quality.  Thus  time  has  given  us  the  variety 
of  quality  or  character  —  Egyptian,  Greek,  Roman, 
Byzantine,  Saracenic,  Chinese,  Indian,  Renaissance, 
French,  Spanish,  Dutch,  etc. 

Quality  is  a  certain  purity,  or  distinction,  in  a 
work  of  art.    That  which  makes  for  quality  is  the  natural 

[   9   ] 


adaptability,  sequence  and  substance  of  time.  Though 
these  differ,  the  essence  is  the  same. 

Strangeness  or  pecuharity  or  singularity  does  not 
make  for  quality.  Strangeness  wears  off,  peculiarity  in 
time  even  bores,  and  both  perish  —  but  real  quality 
ripens  and  grows  in  excellence  and  becomes  a  plastic 
memory,  virile  with  beauty.  Real  quality  makes  for 
age.  It  forms  an  integral  part  of  time,  sacred  to  the 
generations.  Genuine  quality  outlives  all  fads,  and 
makes  for  permanency  that  is  ever  refreshing.  Quality 
is  the  highest  spiritual  embodiment  in  an  art  work  that 
we  can  conceive.  The  rarest  and  highest  quality  comes 
only  from  the  highest  conception.  Quality  is  the  life 
of  art,  as  art  is  the  quality  of  life.  Ethical  or  spir- 
itual quality  is  kindness,  charitableness,  sympathy, 
love;  strength  or  power  is  physical  quality,  while 
aesthetic  qualities  are  those  I  mentioned  above.  But 
all  these  are  inseparable  in  life  and  art.  The  qualities 
of  art  blend  the  spiritual,  the  ethical  and  the  phj^sical. 
Life  and  art  are  not  apart.  It  is  the  wonder  of  quality 
in  us,  in  art,  in  life,  to  desire,  to  crave,  for  still  more 
quality.  Quality  qualifies  itself  only  in  this  wondrous 
continuity.  Using  time  is  an  aesthetic  means  of  the 
art  of  life. 

Development  of  taste  or  of  quality,  like  the  develop- 
ment of  creative  power,  is  infinite.  As  a  guide  and 
incentive  one  holds  before  him  the  indisputable  ideals 
in  works  of  art;  these  ideals  are  the  principles 
we  discussed.  The  creative  mind  makes  principles 
flexible  and  art  seems  to  solicit  contributions  from 
the  inspired.  ^Vliatever  form  of  so-called  modern  art 
might  yet  be  invented  or  evolved,  time,  as  alwaj^s,  will 

[  10  ] 


decide  whether  its  modernity  or  newness  shall  ever  ripen 
with  age  and  become  part  of  tradition.  The  ancient 
was  once  modern,  but  will  the  modern  become  ancient? 

Science  dealing  with  facts  and  facts  with  use  make 
possible  endless  physical  or  chemical  combination. 
Material  use  is  the  great  issue  in  science.  Science 
experiments  and  its  use  or  application  is  its  proof. 
Science  may  advance  as  rapidly  in  the  future  as  it  has 
in  the  past.  But  physical  science  and  metaphysics  are 
not  art,  and  cannot  do  for  art.  A  machine  is  not  a  sonnet 
or  a  picture,  nor  is  a  logical  syllogism  a  prayer;  and  a 
mechanical  draughtsman's  drawing  of  the  intersection  of 
solids  or  of  the  development  of  surfaces  is  not  a  thing 
aesthetic.  But  some  there  are  who  to  be  modern  take  it 
upon  themselves  to  be  the  prophets  and  martyrs.  They 
tell  us  things  and  do  things  that  contribute  as  much  to 
art,  as  calling  all  things  by  the  same  name  does  to  intel- 
ligence. 

Art  is  art,  call  it  what  you  may,  by  any  name.  It 
has  a  distinct  origin  and  a  definite  purpose.  A  prayer 
is  a  prayer,  love  is  love,  tears  are  tears,  sorrow  is  sorrow. 
This  does  not  define  these,  but  before  I  might  begin  any 
sort  of  metaphysical  speculation  or  rudderless  thinking, 
I  do  know  that  a  prayer  is  not  a  city. 

I  confess  that  such  metaphysics  make  for  sham  and 
chaos  and  any  aim  at  posterity  with  such  effort  goes 
amiss.  Many  ancient  sins  are  covered  with  the  cloak  of 
modernity.  Indeed,  convenience  is  often  only  another 
name  for  freedom,  but  such  freedom  is  the  worst  slavery. 
No  art  can  be  built  upon  a  foundation  of  vagaries,  or 
of  fads.  Ideals  ferment  art.  Emotion  is  as  the  sun- 
light to  the  seed  of  art,  and  the  seed  in  time  is  fruit.    The 

[  11  ] 


apple-seed  craves  for  the  apple,  or  it  would  cease  to 
generate.  But  most  of  the  fruit,  if  we  please  to  call 
it  fruit,  of  "modern  art"  degenerates  and  decays. 

No  more  than  one  can  satisfy  physical  hunger  with 
ideals,  can  one  appease  spiritual  starvation  with  man- 
nerisms and  cults.  Art  is  spiritual  belief  or  truth,  the 
symbol  of  the  most  tender  or  virile  instincts  conceivable. 
To  scorn  or  to  slight  the  real  of  the  past,  the  unswayable, 
makes  one  conspicuous  but  not  creative.  Creation  is 
infinite  in  time,  space  and  matter.  Notority  is  momen- 
tary. The  plastic  spiritual  principles  or  ideals  embodied 
in  the  Parthenon,  in  archaic  sculpture,  in  the  Assyrian 
and  the  Egj'ptian,  and  in  the  color  and  design  of  Minoan 
and  Persian,  Chinese  and  Indian  porcelains,  rugs  and 
paintings,  are  a  permanent  source  of  inspiration,  and 
incentive  to  contributive  achievement. 


[    12   ] 


Spiritual  Tactility 


HE  highest  development  of  perception 
and  of  sensitiveness,  will  spring  from  the 
most  tender  interlacing,  blending  or 
correspondence  of  the  several  senses. 
Instinct  contributes  sensibility  which  be- 
gins in  the  embryonic  state  of  human  beings  and  in 
the  period  after  birth  until  the  senses  begin  to  discern 
with  the  intelligence  of  childhood,  increasing  in  dis- 
cernment as  life  goes  on.  But  even  the  instinctive  or 
hereditary  may  be  said  to  be  that  contribution  to  one's 
senses  derived  from  parents  in  prior  contact  with  the 
objective  world  according  to  their  intensity  of  percep- 
tion of  such  contact,  as  of  density  and  the  molecular 
formations  of  matter,  of  heat,  cold,  light,  shape,  size, 
sound,  color,  motion,  time  - —  all  that  makes  for  con- 
sciousness. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  senses  are  developed 
essentially  through  two  avenues:  the  physical  or  the 
inanimate,  and  the  spiritual  or  the  wonderful,  that 
is  a  sense  of  mystery  in  the  being  of  things.  This 
leads  to  Avhat  I  might  call  intimacy  of  tactility  — 
largely  a  plastic  quality,  which  makes  for  spiritual 
plasticity,  through  our  attitude  or  approach.  This 
involves  a  miraculous  action,  a  marvelous  union 
of  the  family  of  the  senses  —  inexplicable.  The 
quality  and  the  character  of  the  act  of  perception, 
determine  the  quality  of  feeling,  of  understanding, 
of  appreciating,  of  embracing.  It  is  this  spiritual 
tactility  that  brings  us  into  closest  touch  and  great- 


[    13   ] 


est  intimacy  with  the  outer  world  until  the  one  enhances 
the  other.  Even  appreciation  becomes  creation  through 
this  awareness  of  the  worlds  without.  There  are 
always  two  cathedrals,  two  pictures,  two  symphonies  — 
the  outer  and  the  inner  —  the  one,  the  expressed ;  and 
the  other  in  the  spectator.  Also  the  finite  becomes  the 
infinite  tlu-ough  art.  The  material  vase  contains 
the  spiritual  essence  of  the  vase  of  the  creator, 
while  the  essence  of  the  vase  entire  is  in  the  spectator. 
This  power  of  assimilation,  of  appreciation,  of  approach, 
of  perception,  depends  largely  upon  the  intensity  of  the 
spiritual  tactility,  or  tactile  intimacy,  of  creator  or 
appreciator.  To  touch  matter  through  sight,  to  color 
the  invisible  with  memory  of  the  visible,  to  hear  through 
touch,  to  see  through  imagination,  to  prophesy  or  to 
evoke  through  memory;  thus  to  interchange  the  func- 
tions of  the  senses  in  the  process  of  perception  while 
enlarging  the  spiritual  range  of  the  senses  is  the  most 
real  function  of  spirit.  To  thus  personify  matter  with 
one's  senses,  embodying  the  inanimate  with  spirit  is  a 
sacred  function  —  the  piety  of  art.  One  might  almost 
say  that  the  tree  speaks,  the  winds  play,  the  sun  shines 
and  colors  through  the  painter,  the  poet  and  the  musi- 
cian. All  lies  silent  and  in  wait  for  the  creative  spirit  to 
liberate  it  from  its  nature  bounds.  All  that  was  born 
claims  all,  clamors  for  a  rebirth  of  itself  —  for 
a  higher,  purer  distinction  or  destiny.  Nature 
creates,  art  destines.  The  laws  of  art  gauge  and  con- 
trol the  destiny  of  matter  or  nature.  Nature  pre- 
ordains ;  art  destines  —  and  its  destiny  is  infinity.  Be- 
tween is  man  with  his  spiritual  tactility. 

Sometimes    I    feel    that    even    inanimate    objects 

[  11  ] 


crave  a  hearing,  and  desire  to  participate  in  the 
great  motion  of  time  and  its  indentations.  This 
is  the  secret  of  hfe,  of  gi'owth,  of  development, 
of  innovation,  of  the  inner  sprouting  or  the  budding 
into  being  and  of  wanting  to  be  the  outer.  The  flower 
is  not  satisfied  to  be  merely  a  flower  in  light  and  space 
and  temperature.  It  wants  to  be  a  flower  in  us,  in  our 
soul.  Things  live  in  us  and  through  us.  A  shingle 
is  more  than  itself  when  it  is  a  shingle  on  the  roof, 
likewise  with  a  brick  in  the  wall,  though  its  only  beauty 
is  its  use.  Things,  objects,  mutely  cry  to  us,  "Touch 
us,  taste  us,  feel  us,  see  us,  understand  us,  learn  us, 
make  us  more  than  we  are  through  your  association, 
tlirough  your  tactile  and  spiritual  intimacy."  The  use 
then  that  we  make  of  matter  is  gauged  by  our  power, 
our  quality  or  our  energy,  to  wield  it,  to  adopt  it,  to 
shape  it,  to  urge  it  on  into  the  fourth  dimension.  The 
same  lump  of  clay  or  the  same  pigments  will  assume 
different  quality,  different  shape,  in  the  hands  of  two 
persons.  And  clay  is  more  than  clay  in  the 
hands  of  a  master.  And  we  with  our  senses  are  the 
master  works  of  God  —  governed  by  intellect  and  pos- 
sessed of  a  spirituality  limitless,  of  infinite  power  and 
quality.  The  word  is  more  than  a  word;  it  becomes 
significant  only  through  us. 

Intimacy,  phantasy,  art,  are  born  of  the  marriage  of 
our  senses  with  matter.  New  revelation  will  mean  new 
art  —  not  mere  oral  mechanics,  mathematical  philoso- 
phy, or  metaphysics.  Only  stirring  emotions  and 
nuances  of  wisdom  as  jeweled  or  ornate  mentality,  can 
give  rise  to  such  art. 

Spiritual    tactility    may    be    said    to    begin    when 

[    15   ] 


matter  inanimate  touches  space.  Animated  spiritual 
tactility  may  be  said  to  happen  and  to  be,  when  we  feel 
the  reality  or  when  matter,  light,  sound,  temperature, 
reaches  or  touches  us.  It  may  be  said  to  be  the  spirit- 
ual consciousness.  It  is  like  the  finger  touching  the 
organ. 

Spiritual  tactility  is  the  wonder  moment  when 
genius  or  creative  energy  comes  in  contact  with  matter 
and  decides  and  shapes  its  destiny  in  the  realms  of  art. 
Its  value  is  its  plastic  spiritual  worth  in  art  —  what- 
ever form  it  be.  It  is  the  wonder  moment  when  spirit 
meets  matter,  when  inanimate  substance  meets  the  ani- 
mate and  therefore  its  life  —  its  plastic  destiny,  is  de- 
cided. There  are  other  Parthenons,  other  sjTnphonies, 
other  Congo  sculpture,  other  Gobelin  tapestry,  waiting 
for  the  master  to  breathe  reality  into  them.  The  impetus 
to  look  with  wonder  into  the  future,  we  derive  from  our 
plastic  spirituality.  As  space  receives  time,  so  space 
gives  time  and  significance  of  life.  This  is  infinity,  and 
infinity  is  hope  to  live  the  yet  Unknown. 

Infinity  is  in  the  potentiality  of  time,  space,  matter. 
Spiritual  tactility  fires  the  frozen  and  moves  the  im- 
movable.   Through  it  man  breathes  his  soul  into  matter. 


16 


Tradition  and  Now 


IME  adds  more  to  tradition  every 
new  day.  To  try  to  be  traditional 
to-day  may  be  as  erroneous  as  some 
of  the  modern  efforts  in  art  that 
run  away  from  time  itself.  They  are 
jeyond  the  last  or  the  latest  moment.  They  are  before 
being.  In  science  it  would  be  absurd  to  go  back  to  the 
remote  past.  Wliile  in  art  the  further  we  go  from  the 
past  the  more  scientific  and  self-conscious  we  be- 
come. Yet  we  know  that  we  cannot  express  our 
"modern"  emotions  in  the  terms  and  means  of  the 
ancients.  Indeed  we  must  invent  new  means.  But 
before  inventing  new  means,  how  much  and  wherein 
have  our  emotions  changed  from  those  of  the  ancients? 
Scientifically  the  races  have  gone  indescribably  far 
ahead  of  the  ancients,  but  spiritually  and  aesthetically 
where  are  we? 

In  recent  years,  art  has  been  made  into  a  science, 
and  if  not  fully  that,  it  has  been  dragged  into  meta- 
physical arenas.  Some  serious  and  inspired  spirits  have 
sought  and  are  seeking  to  express  the  poetry  of  modern 
dynamics  so  full  of  marvel,  peculiar  to  our  age,  but  the 
most  only  mimic  the  dynamic  and  they  would  make  us 
believe  that  this  is  the  new  art  —  this  tendency  toward 
the  basest  sort  of  realism  and  degeneracy. 

Tradition  is  a  stumbling  block  unless  one  knows 
how  to  use  it.  One  of  the  greatest  forms  of  cre- 
ation is  the  binding  of  time  and  the  making  of  con- 
tinuity —  or  harmony  of  time.     Acts  of  creation  on 


[    17    ] 


time  are  like  the  hammer  beats  of  the  goldsmith  on 
metal, —  with  each  beat  there  is  more  refinement.  But  it 
must  be  a  material  with  hidden  quality  in  the  hands  of  an 
artisan  with  constructive  purpose  and  a  power  to 
mold.  Instead  of  studying  or  feeling  the  spirit  of  the 
ancients  through  their  art  —  only  their  means  by  some 
are  used.  Many  have  dressed  themselves  in  robes  that  fit 
them  neither  in  form  nor  in  color.  Expression  pre- 
ordains its  own  means.  It  is  the  emotion,  the  inspira- 
tion, that  stirs  the  individual  creator,  or  an  entire  race, 
before  its  expression.  Emotion  cannot  be  sustained 
in  the  individual,  and  this  is  as  true  of  an  entire 
people.  In  the  beginning  of  emotion,  intellectual  inten- 
sity^ is  expressed  with  ardor  and  devotion  —  later  it 
cools  and  whole  races  or  groups  are  found  busy  prac- 
ticing, either  through  stupidity  or  through  boredom, 
the  means  that  no  more  fit  the  spirit,  if  spirit  it  is. 
This  is  the  history  of  academism.  This  is  the  history 
of  art  when  it  turns  into  metaphysical  dogma  or 
scientific  processes  or  technique.  This  is  the  history  of 
art  without  life.  This  is  the  life  of  "art"  when  it  must 
turn  to  science  or  to  the  varied  vagaries  of  the 
brain  as  an  excuse  for  being.  Such  is  the  "fruit"  of  art 
when  irresponsibility  through  despair  sets  in.  This  is 
the  history  of  art  movements  when  a  grain  of  inspira- 
tion —  if  it  is  inspiration,  is  packed  in  cases,  labelled, 
stamped  and  shipped.  But  like  bad  wine  the  label 
outside  helps  it  not.  And  often  enough  we  have  received 
advance  notice  of  a  shipment  of  the  newest  art,  but  there 
was  little  to  unload.  Or  we  came  away  after  mucli 
debate  and  harangue  with  spirit  vexed  and  mind 
starved.     This  is  the  history  of  art  when  it  is  an  art 

[    18   ] 


of  means  and  not  of  inspiration,  or  prophecy,  or 
revelation. 

In  the  history  of  art  we  may  find  whole  periods  or 
epochs  when  spirit  was  bankrupt,  and  when  leather  was 
distributed  for  gold.  In  the  history  of  mankind,  the  in- 
tensity of  emotion  and  its  expression  varied  accordingly 
as  religious  ardor,  or  scientific  discovery,  or  economic 
principles  ruled  the  hour.  This  is  certain,  that  great  art 
reveals  itself  without  loud  verbal  manifestoes.  I 
have  come  to  believe  that  these  manifestoes  are  loud 
shouts  that  deafen,  instead  of  being  deep  and  silent  and 
profound.  This  is  new  to  art,  but  it  is  not  new  art. 
There  is  now  an  academy  of  manifesters  and  their 
manifestoes.  It  is  art  labelled  with  scientific  titles. 
We  have  had  whole  ship-loads  of  Italian,  French, 
Spanish  and  English  flavors  of  art,  hastily  manufac- 
tured. But  who  can  manufacture  or  ship  real  inspira- 
tion? A^Tio  can  even  talk  about  it?  ^Vlio  can  name  it? 
And  if  it  has  been  expressed,  was  it  not  in  too  great  a 
haste  to  warrant  its  continued  pulsation?  Or  was  it 
not  hot-house  art?  Or  is  it  not  the  last  flicker  of  a 
dying  light? 

Materialism  is  now  strong.  It  is  become  life's 
protection  and  gauge.  In  ages  past  beaut j^  was  use; 
now  use  is  beauty.  In  past  ages  cathedrals  were 
built,  whereas  now  machines  for  life  and  death 
as  well  are  built.  And  while  ages  past  were  not 
so  scientifically  eventful,  yet  I  see  and  I  feel,  that  they 
shall  be  better  remembered  because  of  their  superior 
spirit  and  of  the  embodiment  of  that  spirit  in  lasting 
works  of  art. 

^Vherein  and  how  shall  we  find  hope  for  new  art  in 

[    19   ] 


this  tormented  age?  There  are  those  who  cry:  "We 
are  tired  of  emulating.  We  want  the  newest  new!" 
But  I  have  noted  the  rapidity  with  which  the 
new  is  arrived  at,  and  how  quickly  tired  of  the 
newest  these  same  ones  become.  They  become  tired 
of  being  tired  of  their  own  newness  or  novelty  —  not 
realizing  that  their  own  newness  decayed.  Means  of 
art  outlive  themselves  and  become  mediocre  and  monot- 
onous, but  spirit,  hope,  conception  are  ever  new  —  new 
to  every  living  person,  as  to  whole  races  or  epochs. 
The  whole  race  of  Egypt  built  the  Sphinx  and  their 
temples.  All  Greece  shaped  the  Parthenon.  And  in 
modern  time,  Cezanne  did  not  write  manifestoes  with 
the  first  picture  he  painted,  nor  did  he  threaten  to  over- 
throw the  universe  with  his  brush  and  palette.  And  his 
influence  after  a  life's  work  is  to-day  profoundly  felt 
both  by  the  young  and  the  older  generations. 

It  takes  time  for  growth  of  thought  and  expression 
to  sprout;  like  the  plant,  it  needs  time  and  heat  and 
light  and  rain  in  proportion  to  its  natural  requisite. 
But  now  we  have  so  many  old  masters  before  they  are 
even  young.  Shall  art  be  in  the  race  with  modern 
electric  automatics?  A  thought  is  swift,  and  illumina- 
tion is  even  swifter  than  the  swiftest  things,  but  art  is 
not  a  scientific  process.  It  is  the  ripeness  of  thought 
that  produces  art.  Time  is  a  museum  that  keeps  its 
doors  locked  to  unripe  and  hasty  work.  But  art,  if  art 
it  is,  has  its  own  reward  in  living  through  whole  ages 
of  darkness.  This  is  proven  by  the  contents  of  great 
collections  of  monuments,  by  temples  and  their  interior 
decorations,  in  mosaic,  in  wrought  iron,  wood  and  stone 
carving  and  in  stained  glass. 

[    20   ] 


Shall  we  ignore  these  and  their  creators?  Or  can 
we  afford  to  throw  all  the  past  aside  and  make  a  new 
art?  Where  shall  we  begin  and  what  if  we  do? 
Spiritual  inner  harmony  ferments  art.  If  that  was  the 
seed  for  art  in  the  past,  can  it  be  the  seed  of  art  now? 
Are  we  spiritual,  are  we  in  harmony  with  ourselves  and 
with  our  environment?  Do  we  have  the  time  to  con- 
template, to  find  out  where  we  are,  or  who  we  are? 
What  is  the  aim  to-day? 

These  are  the  questions  we  must  ask  of  ourselves 
before  we  write  manifestoes,  and  illustrate  them  with 
our  efforts  at  new  forms.  Are  there  new  forms? 
I  mean  form  as  form  in  the  domain  of  plastic  art,  the 
expression  of  human  emotion,  or  spirit,  or  of  a  hope 
to  reach  a  beyondness.  Do  we  know  and  under- 
stand the  antique.  Have  we  outlived  its  spiritual 
use?  Is  it  a  foreign  language  to  those  who  live 
so  differently  from  the  ancients?  Is  it  art,  or  is  it 
science,  that  proves  to  us  that  the  old  forms  have  out- 
lived themselves?  Have  our  spirits  changed  that  we 
must  change  our  art?  Or  do  we  want  art,  at  all?  Are 
we  spiritually  himgry?  Or  are  our  souls  fed  with  the 
husks  of  materialism?  If  there  is  glory  in  war,  what  is 
there  in  art?  Or  if  we  need  art,  do  we  find  that  it  must 
be  in  the  sense  of  a  shock?  Have  our  nerves  and  senses 
so  changed  that  we  need  instead  of  quiet,  noise,  and  in- 
stead of  grandeur,  bulk?  Have  our  dimensions,  scales 
and  relationships  changed?  Is  our  joy  become  a  neurotic 
frenzy  or  is  it  a  physical  and  a  spiritual  expression? 
Do  we  weep  no  more?  And  if  we  do,  are  our  tears  of 
water?  Are  our  children  merely  our  offspring,  or  are 
they  our  spiritual  reproduction,  the  embodiment  of  our 

[  21  ] 


noblest  spirit-selves?  Is  society  merely  number  in 
being,  or  is  it  quality  in  living?  These  things  we  must 
find  out  before  we  overthrow  the  old,  if  the  old  has  be- 
come finite  for  us ! 

Inherence  and  infinity  contain  forms  yet  unborn. 
Do  we  listen?  Do  we  feel  infinity,  do  we  put  a  part  of 
ourselves  in  the  inherent,  to  emerge  with  the  conception 
of  new  forms?  Have  we  no  sorrow,  no  joy,  as  people  of 
generations  past?  Have  we  so  completely  changed  our 
humanity  that  we  find  we  must  reconstruct  the  principles 
of  art?  Do  we  need  art?  I  mean  painting,  sculpture, 
poetry.  Perhaps  it  is  because  of  om*  feeling  no  need 
of  the  placid,  plastic  arts,  that  we  try  to  find  new  forms 
and  talk  of  art  in  terms  of  metaphysics  instead  of  quietly 
living  and  making  art  as  others  did  in  the  past,  and  as 
creative  spirit  always  will. 

Perhaps  plastic  art,  no  matter  how  revolutionary 
or  realistic  it  may  be,  has  become  insufficient.  Perhaps 
we  need  new  forms  of  exhilaration  and  of  excitement  to 
make  for  us  a  new  rest  and  a  pleasure,  more  suited  to  our 
taste  and  to  our  leisure  and  to  our  economy  as  modified 
by  the  character  of  the  whole  system  of  modern  life. 
Perhaps  we  do  not  need  painting  or  sculpture,  at  all. 
Perhaps  we  need  a  new  architecture,  a  new  music,  or 
a  period  of  silence  and  a  long  rest.  Perhaps  we  need 
a  spiritual  recreation.  Then  let  us  live  for  a  while 
out-of-doors  with  the  arts.  Then  child-like,  return,  and 
make  a  new  beginning  that  may  make  for  truer  mo- 
dernity in  modern  art.  Art  as  we  know  it  to  be,  or  as 
we  find  it  to  be  built  upon  the  principles  embodied  in 
the  great  antiques.  How  shall  the  arts  of  the  past 
serve  us?    Shall  they  at  least  help  us  to  see  how  differ- 

[    22   ] 


ent  in  emotion,  in  attitude  and  belief  we  have  become 
from  the  races  that  created  them? 

With  a  great  religious  revival  four  centuries  ago 
came  the  Renaissance.  Shall  we  argue  that  art  needs 
no  urge,  no  impulse  from  an  outside  source,  and  that 
"modernity"  itself  is  the  excuse  for  most  modern  art 
outbursts.  But  then  what  is  modernity,  from  where 
does  it  spring,  and  how?  Whether  we  have  changed  or 
not,  I  believe,  in  spite  of  all  the  manifestoes  to  the 
contrary,  in  whatever  tongue  they  be  written  or  spoken, 
that  the  antiques  will  live  as  long  as  the  sun  shines,  as 
long  as  there  is  mother  and  child,  as  long  as  there  are 
seasons  and  climes,  as  long  as  there  is  life  and  death, 
sorrow  and  joy. 


[   23  ] 


Means 


EANS  in  whatever  form  they  be  speak 
for  us.  If  we  work  in  color,  pigment 
speaks  for  us.  If  we  work  in  clay  and 
bronze,  clay  and  bronze  speak  for  us. 
Our  thoughts,  our  ideas  of  things,  our 
words  and  language,  speak  for  us;  and  so  with  every 
form  of  creative  work  or  expression.  Means  are  outside 
of  us.  Our  power  of  mastering  matter  makes  for  means. 
The  purpose  of  means  is  expression.  Thoughts  creative 
must  pass  through  the  doors  of  means.  Means  are  the 
gates  between  the  inner  and  the  outer,  between  the 
real  and  the  ideal,  between  the  expressed  and  the  un- 
expressed. The  passage  is  made  up  of  all  species  of 
matter  that  serve  the  spirit.  The  spirit  as  it  passes 
through  these  gates  between  the  outer  and  the  inner 
must  clothe  itself  with  suitable  apparel.  At  the  mar- 
riage feast  of  the  arts,  the  spirit  comes  clothed  in  a 
wedding  garment.  A  range  of  costumes  are  ready 
to  robe  expression  from  the  mediocre  to  the  sublime. 
Homer's  spirit  at  these  gates  chooses  the  Odyssey 
and  the  Iliad,  David's  spirit  the  Psalms,  Greco's 
spirit  the  Laocoon,  Bach's  spirit  his  wonder  fugues, 
and  likewise  with  whole  races,  their  art,  their  literature, 
and  their  other  culture. 

And  so  we  find  the  great  spirits  dressed  in  simple 
vestments.  The  great  are  simple.  And  it  is  not  the 
dress,  it  is  the  spirit  dressed.  It  is  not  Dostoyewsky's 
novels,  it  is  the  essence  of  Dostoj^ewsky's  spirit  that 
we  are  able  to  read  and  to  inhale  through  his  marvelous 

[   25   ] 


means  —  his  novels.  And  so  with  Michael  Angelo's 
Pieta,  with  the  Parthenon  of  the  Greeks,  with  the 
Prophets  of  the  Hebrews.  Means  and  spirit  go 
together. 

The  spirit  is  more  even  though  it  may  not  be  ex- 
pressed, than  any  means  if  such  exist  only  as  means,  or 
as  cold  technique.  A  color  must  be  more  than  a  color. 
A  form  must  be  more  than  a  form;  it  must  suggest  the 
sacred  more  onh''  found  in  the  spiritual.  Everything 
must  be  more  than  it  is  visibly.  This  seeming  invisi- 
bleness  is  the  realization  and  the  wonder  of  the  infinite. 
Means  of  expression  and  their  scientifically  derived 
terms  will  never  answer  for  expression  proper.  Means 
and  expression  are  two  different  things.  Certain  means 
may  infer  or  suggest  infinite  vagaries,  but  art  never 
found  adequate  expression  in  means  alone. 

There  is  order,  number  and  relationship  even 
in  the  non-material  spheres.  Ends  justify  means 
and  even  means  justify  means  for  a  time,  but  expres- 
sion, revelation  or  illumination  flourishes  not  on  means. 
The  means  of  expression  or  the  realization  of  perception 
is  but  transitional  and  momentary.  Some  means  are 
merely  intentions  or  experiments.  The  hunger  of  the 
human  spirit  cannot  be  satisfied  with  the  means  of  "art" 
only.  Means  and  only  means  mean  nothing.  Only  ex- 
pression gives  life  and  significance.  Creation  or  ex- 
pression always  has  other  forms  of  creation  in  its  inher- 
ent purpose,  and  creation  is  revelation,  never  a  befogging 
mystery  and  doubt. 

Mystery  infinite  from  revelation  springs. 

And  mystery  illumines  only  when  itself  it  reveals. 

[    26   ] 


Always  it  is  expression  before  means.  The  inten- 
sity of  the  inner  creative  urge  impels,  chooses  and  in- 
vents the  means.  Means  alone  cannot  build  up  an  art. 
Often  we  find  in  the  rare  achievements  of  the  past  the 
simplest  means  employed  to  convey,  to  bring  home  to 
the  heart,  the  greatest  expression.  Art  does  not  lie  in  its 
means;  it  lies  in  its  mission,  in  its  purpose,  in  its  mes- 
sage, in  its  prophecy.  The  difference  of  expression, 
of  creative  power,  necessitates  the  difference  in  means. 
The  spirit  wields  matter.  Means  are  in  matter  and 
method,  never  in  spirit.  Means  are  indifferent  to  the 
quality  of  expression,  while  expression  determines  its 
own  best  suited  means.  Sometimes  the  spirit  is  greater 
imexpressed  than  expressed.  For  means  may  hamper  or 
even  bar  expression.  Means  and  methods  are  only  the 
mechanism  of  art.  In  the  architectonic  process  of 
a  work,  the  spirit  of  expression  creates  the  means,  in 
the  intervals  of  the  process  of  formation.  The  spirit 
seems  to  call  dormant  matter  out  of  chaos  and  to  give  it 
new  birth,  new  destiny,  new  existence,  new  life  in  every 
work  of  art.  It  gives  it  a  mission,  it  makes  of  dead  or 
indifferent  matter  the  very  abode  for  the  spirit.  The 
spirit  is  born  somewhere  within,  and  calls  upon  its  most 
appropriate  means  to  help  it  install  or  realize  itself 
in  the  outer,  the  visible,  the  perceptible.  Expression 
loses  much  on  account  of  means.  In  the  history  of  art 
more  has  been  felt  than  expressed.  On  account  of 
means,  silence  has  often  been  more  expressive,  more 
messageful,  than  even  expression.  For  one  to  change 
his  palette  or  his  methods  is  not  changing  personality 
and  its  innate  expression.  The  spirit  must  first  change 
the  inner  color,  the  inner  proportions,  the  inner  balance ; 

[    27   ] 


then  these  will  seek  new  means.  One  may  speak 
and  convey  nothing.  One  may  work  and  accomplish 
nothing.  Occupying  one's  self  with  processes  is  to 
make  of  one's  self  an  automatic  machine.  It  is  the 
search  for  richness  of  spirit  and  for  grandeur  of  imag- 
ination that  produces  art,  never  the  mannerisms  of 
the  cults.  But  this  searching  should  be  a  consciousness 
of  possession. 

Technique  has  to  some  a  devilish  fascination  that 
makes  their  work  a  machine.  But  the  wonder  and 
blessing  of  the  spirit  is  that  it  can  manifest  itself  best 
tlu'ough  the  simplest  means  and  that  it  knows  of  no 
technique.  And  a  realization  of  this  comes  soon  to  every 
creative  spirit.  Ripeness  is  struggle,  and  virtuosity  is 
never  ripe.  Technique  has  often  frozen  the  spirit.  I 
mean  the  technique  of  the  schools  with  their  isms,  for 
such  are  periodic  and  local,  and  are  full  of  vanity  and 
propaganda.  The  great  danger  of  technique  is  that 
often  it  misfits  the  spirit  with  wrong  means  and  pro- 
cesses. The  searching  spirit  is  free  from  mannerisms, 
and  almost  unconsciously  creates  means  suited  to  its  ex- 
pression, at  the  time  of  progress  and  of  conception.  Ex- 
pression —  creative  energy,  knows  no  bounds,  while 
means  are  limited.  Too  often  have  plastic  means  been 
mistaken  for  expression  proper.  While  it  is  difficult 
to  say  that  expression  should  be  conceived  independent 
of  means,  yet  I  hold  that  that  which  prompts  expression 
is  the  same  for  all  the  arts.  Indeed  expression 
and  means  are  firmly  linked,  but  the  two  must 
not  be  confused,  nor  can  the  quality  of  the  one 
redeem  the  failure  or  deficiency  of  the  other.  Lack  of 
spirituality  or  of  poetry  will  never  be  disguised  by  facile 

[   28   ] 


means.  For  the  craving  spirit,  if  starved,  cries  out  in 
time:  "Wliat  have  the  means  expressed?  How  has  the 
expression  served  the  soul?" 

Expression  is  expression  only  beyond  its  means. 
It  is  the  essence  of  the  creative  spirit  conveyed  by 
means,  for  which  the  world  waits.  Freshness  of  spirit 
or  the  desire  to  reveal  will  call  for  new  means,  but  such 
new  means  do  not  mean  a  new  revelation ;  and  as  for  the 
new  in  art,  I  feel  safe  in  saying  that  the  oldest  old  is  the 
newest  new.  Art  lies  in  spirituality,  in  nobleness,  and  in 
virile  placid  beauty  and  always  upon  such  qualities  it 
depends,  to  evoke  its  own  means. 

The  feeling  or  need  for  an  intense  color  will  choose 
an  intense  pigment,  the  feeling  or  necessity  for  the 
beauty  of  interlacing  of  areas  will  choose  its  essential 
geometric  warmth  or  austerity.  The  imagination 
or  conception  of  an  arrangement  of  forms  or 
of  a  particular  gamut  of  color  in  a  given  rectangle 
is  not  a  matter  of  means,  but  an  inner  spiritual  vision. 
The  yet  unexpressed  chooses  its  own  means  for  the 
expressed.  Means  of  expression  do  not  find  or  reveal; 
it  is  the  craving  of  the  spirit  for  birth  that  finds  its  means 
in  its  appearance  upon  the  outer  visible  spheres.  When 
the  expression  of  the  creator  reaches  out  and  enters 
the  spectator,  the  message  is  supreme,  and  the  means 
are  either  forgotten  or  at  most  are  only  secondary. 

It  is  not  the  means  that  explain  or  declare  the 
vision,  it  is  the  essence  of  the  means,  which  in  turn  is 
itself  of  the  spirit.  To  substitute  a  mockery  of  technique 
for  the  means  that  convey  a  true  spiritual  expression,  is 
to  play  the  most  fallible  burlesque  of  the  intellect. 
But  such  attempts  are  never  more  than  the  abnormal  or 

[   29   ] 


despondent  outburst  of  the  vain  and  deluded,  who  pre- 
pare their  own  destiny  —  death.  To  the  queer,  resort 
only  the  impious,  the  spiritless,  the  vacant  of  mind  and 
barren  of  heart.  And  it  is  not  difficult  to  be  queerer 
than  the  queerest,  for  the  queer  is  the  natural  expres- 
sion of  the  charlatan,  and  cynicism  is  but  the  maniac 
laughter  of  intellectual  sacrilege,  of  impotence,  of  de- 
spair. 


[   30  ] 


Things 


Name  not  things  ye  see. 
If  ye  do,  then  no  more  they  are. 
Hurt  not  intimacy  by  loud  calling, 
Name  not,  frighten  not,  molest,  not 
Things  —  the  holiness  of  things 
Wliich  intimacy  brings. 


E  speak  about  things,  but  we  seldom 
hear  the  things  speak  to  us.  By  things 
I  do  not  mean  events,  politics,  wars,  or 
even  plays.  I  mean  things  in  the  three 
dimensions,  made  and  shaped  by  hand 
and  taste.  Things  useful  and  spiritual  and  intellectual. 
Usefulness,  spirituality  and  intellect  in  the  existing 
standards  of  education  are  classified  separately. 
Things  spiritual  are  usually  understood  to  mean 
religion.  Things  intellectual  are  meant  to  be  in- 
formation, news  of  discoveries,  wars,  international 
intrigue,  all  the  isms  and  the  ists.  By  things  I  mean 
objects  of  use,  houses,  clothing,  food,  implements, 
utensils  and  their  functions.  Unfortunately  art  is 
set  apart  from  everything.  Art  is  in  the  parlor 
and  in  the  museums  and  is  seen  but  several  hours 
in  the  year.  Some  never  see  it.  Art  is  a  luxury  according 
to  the  common  understanding.  Unless  an  art  work  is  cen- 
turies old  and  is  valued  in  the  thousands,  it  isn't  authentic 
art.  Yet  some  old  things  are  very  bad.  Culture  has 
been   too   mental   and   too   verbal.     Schools  and  their 

[   31    ] 


isms  and  vagaries  and  social  formalities  have  been  detri- 
mental to  real  culture.  Culture  will  come  only  when 
every  man  will  know  how  to  address  himself  to 
the  inanimate  simple  things  of  life.  A  pot,  a  cup, 
a  piece  of  calico,  a  chair,  a  mantel,  a  frame,  the  binding 
of  a  book,  the  trimming  of  a  dress  .  .  .  these  we  live 
with.  Culture  will  come  when  people  touch  things  with 
love  and  see  them  vdth  a  penetrating  eye. 

As  a  nail,  or  a  screw  or  a  bolt  is  essential  and  is  a 
part  of  a  whole  machine,  so  is  every  simple  thing  a  part 
of  the  whole  spiritual,  living,  moving  cosmos.  I  would 
much  rather  be  able  to  shape  things  on  the  anvil, 
or  in  the  kiln  or  to  make  a  table  or  a  cabinet,  or  to  design 
a  public  hall,  or  theatre,  than  to  be  a  lecturer  on  the 
history  of  literature  or  of  the  arts  and  crafts.  I  would 
much  rather  make  a  foot  stool  than  to  spend  my  time 
fishing  for  the  origin  of  the  root  of  a  Greek  or  a  Chaldean 
word.  I  would  rather  dig  up  things  by  the  roots  in  a  gar- 
den I  have  dug  and  sowed  myself.  For  words  in  them- 
selves are  nothing,  they  are  an  abstract  equivalent  of 
things.  Words  in  the  dictionary  are  indifferent. 
Weight  in  itself  is  nothing,  it  is  the  thing  that  has  the 
weight  that  is  the  thing.  The  measure  itself  is  nothing. 
It  is  the  thing  measured.  The  compass  is  a  marvelous 
thing  in  the  hand  of  the  mariner.  But  it  is  the  direction 
in  space  it  marks,  or  its  significance,  the  places  it  guides 
to,  that  are  important.  It  is  not  the  abstractness  of 
the  thing,  it  is  the  concreteness. 

Light  is  more  when  it  illumines  things.  It  is  the 
things  that  are  important.  Theoretical  quality  or 
beauty  is  absolute  nonsense.  It  is  quality  and 
beauty  in  things  that  count.     Speed,  power,  is  nothing 

[    32    ] 


...  it  is  all  in  things.  Thinking  thoughts  is  sheer 
waste,  often  purposeless.  Thinking  thoughts  about 
things,  fermenting  action,  is  creative.  Ideas  of  ideas  are 
futile.  Professional  thinking  is  destruction.  It  is  a 
mental  vandalism  of  the  concrete.  To  think  is  to  see 
with  the  eyes  upon  the  memory  of  things  in  time  and 
place  and  environment.  To  think  is  to  speak  with  inner 
sight  upon  the  concrete. 

Education  has  heretofore  been  much  too  aristocratic 

—  it  made  for  idlers  and  for  professional  rheto- 
ricians, from  whom  has  sprung  crime  and  de- 
generacy and  scandal,  while  the  humblest  occupation 
is  in  reality  far  nobler  than  any  of  the  so-called  higher 
vocations. 

Materialism  has  thrown  things  out  of  scale  and  pro- 
portion. It  has  distorted  values  and  blurred  the 
nuances  of  the  worth  of  things.  Labor  is  regarded  as 
slavery.  To  be  idle  is  to  be  outside  of  things.  It  is  to 
starve  the  senses  and  to  narrow  the  intellect.  The 
necessity  of  engaging  the  senses  in  the  perception  of 
color  and  form  in  daily  life  is  overlooked. 

We  are  in  things.  I  need  a  cup  or  a  garment;  so 
much  of  my  life's  need  is  in  them  that  they  are  essen- 
tial to  my  life.  Likewise  with  my  need  of  objects  and 
things  whose  beauty  is  their  use  and  whose  use  is  beauty 

—  a  picture,  a  sculpture,  a  rug,  a  necklace.  A  room 
is  empty  —  a  thing  is  brought  in  and  I  am  no  more 
alone.  With  science  we  exist  or  perish,  with  art  we 
live  and  hope.  Through  art  we  can  sow  the  highest 
form  of  life.  We  can  embody  quality  in  objects  of  use. 
Through  knowing  things  we  are  better  able  to  discrim- 
inate, to  discern,  to  compare  things  of  matter  with  spirit. 

[    33   ] 


Things  arouse  the  senses  of  perception.  Through 
things  I  feel  tied  to  earth.  Everything  lives  — 
I  live  with  things.  Things  have  individuality,  distinct 
characteristics,  color,  form,  size,  substance  and  texture. 
To  know  things  is  to  live  with  more  subtlety,  refinement 
and  purpose.  It  is  to  make  of  things  the  environment. 
What  we  call  bad  taste  would  lessen,  so  that  material 
would  not  be  wasted  on  the  non-useful  and  ugly.  Good 
taste  is  not  in  accord  with  the  covetous  spirit ;  it  discards 
the  ugly,  it  chooses  quality  not  quantity.  To  be  covet- 
ous is  to  remain  spiritually  or  aesthetically  in  poverty. 
To  possess  good  taste  is  to  own  the  sun  and  moon  and 
stars.  The  whole  world  is  had  in  spiritual  possession. 
Richness  in  spirit  and  ripeness  of  taste  make  for  highest 
culture.  Intellect  develops  through  a  spiritual 
tactility,  through  love  and  understanding  of  the  princi- 
ples that  when  embodied  in  things  make  for  quality  and 
for  distinction.  To  cherish  things,  to  reverence  things 
is  to  cherish  one's  own  self.  Life  would  be  barren 
without  matter  formed  into  beautiful  proportion,  aside 
from  its  use. 

We  often  hear  of  the  "practical  turn  of  mind." 
Yes,  and  they  are  practical  whose  minds  are  filled  with 
contracts,  measures,  weights,  prices,  profits,  war  maps. 
To  live  with  merely  a  useful  table  is  to  live  with  so  much 
useful  lumber  made  to  serve  the  purpose  of  a  table. 
And  why  have  a  table?  Savages  used  the  ground.  But 
to  have  a  table  that  is  of  fine  proportion  and  at  the  same 
time  useful,  is  to  live  with  the  spirit  of  the  maker  of 
the  table.  A  table  or  house  that  is  merely  useful  serves 
only  the  animal  in  us,  but  things  of  proportion,  rhythm, 
color,  evoke  the  God  in  us.     Things  of  money  value 

[    3t    ] 


are  obvious,  even  though  they  be  diamonds  and  rubies. 
To  pass  indifferently  or  blindly  an  object  of  good  pro- 
portion, color  or  design,  is  like  passing  and  stumbling 
over  physical  things.  It  is  spiritual  blindness.  There 
is  a  spiritual  death  of  the  senses  while  physically  they 
may  be  normal  and  alive.  Yet  if  the  senses  are  numb 
the  intellect  grows  dull  and  colorless. 

Things  of  quality,  providing  we  are  sensitive  to 
them,  draw  us  out  of  ourselves.  Through  things  we  ever 
establish  new  relationshijis  between  ourselves  and  the 
principles  that  underlie  things.  The  simplest  object 
may  have  embodied  in  it  the  finest  degree  of  excellence. 
Instinctively  man  is  an  industrious  animal.  Neglecting 
the  making  of  things,  of  living  and  of  loving  things,  the 
student  of  mental  sciences  or  theories  falls  back 
upon  himself  instead  of  upon  things,  hence  the 
mind  grows  morbid,  even  abnormal.  Mental  depression 
and  sophistry  set  in;  the  spirit  of  joy,  play  and  fruition 
decays.  Things  help  us  find  an  equilibrium  always,  while 
ideas  and  suppositions  often  drop  us  into  a  sea  of  mud. 
And  there  is  nothing  more  sad  than  a  helpless  philoso- 
pher with  locked  hands  and  a  stagnant  mind. 

I  sometimes  think  the  factories  or  shops  are  the  real 
universities  and  that  the  universities  are  the  factories. 
Better  a  brawny  sensitive  hand,  a  keen  eye,  a  tender 
touch,  a  creative  mind  and  a  vivid  spirit,  than  to  be  a 
hazy,  helpless  and  useless  theorist.  Better  things  of 
beauty  and  use  from  the  hands  of  man,  than  the  wander- 
ing theories  that  wearv  the  flesh  and  starve  the  soul. 
He  who  appreciates  the  principles  of  proportion, 
harmony,  balance,  symmetry,  in  simple  objects  and 
in  works  of  art,  finds  that  those  qualities  are  in  him, 

[    35    ] 


and  it  is  only  through  things  that  one  discerns  himself. 
These  principles  tell  the  spectator  that  these  are  princi- 
ples of  life,  and  man  has  expressed  them  in  form,  in 
things  as  a  part  of  himself.  Through  the  understanding 
of  ideals  we  cement  the  real  to  us.  And  while  these  are 
but  plastic  principles  in  objects,  yet,  when  felt  by  the 
spectator,  these  principles  become  spiritual  in  him. 
Thus  art  and  life  are  not  apart.    Art  foundations  life. 


[   36   ] 


Preparing  to  See 


What  a  dome  silence  makes! 

Wliat  music,  what  words  are  in  it ! 

For  what  it  echoes  is  not  all  of  now. 

All  music  and  all  words  are  there. 

For  when  I  speak  or  when  I  sing, 

Mine  own  with  other  echoes  blended  I  hear. 

With  the  sound  and  the  color  of  my  voice 

Time  to  time  I  bind. 

Strange  is  the  echo,  but  real  is  the  echo 

Then  why  fear  one's  own  echo-self? 

Though  I  call  not  and  the  space-dome  silent  be, 

My  echo,  my  tone-self  is  there  — 

In  space  with  infinite  echoes  it  hovers. 

With  whatever  word  or  vision  silence  I  imprint, 

That  my  echo-self  sends  back  to  me. 

My  echo  here 

Is  myself  everywhere  — 

My  echo  everywhere. 


UST  I  not  stand  under  a  dome  of  silence 
to  see?  And  this  stillness  ferments  a 
mood  of  peace,  of  contemplation.  Yes- 
terday I  saw  something.  I  took  the 
memory  of  that  thing  with  me.  I  knew 
more.  I  felt  more.  I  wanted  more.  No  one  could  tell 
me  better  what  I  saw,  and  no  one  knows  how  much 
more,  and  what  more,  I  must  yet  see  of  that  thing  for 
my  satisfaction.     Some  one  tells  me  what  he  saw  in 

[    37    ] 


the  same  thing,  but  I  am  certain  from  his  description 
that  that  person  saw  quite  a  different  thing.  He  saw 
himself  therein,  and  I  saw  myself.  But  I  did  not  see 
my  whole  self  and  therefore  I  had  to  go  back  to  look 
at  least  once  again.  No  one  can  use  another's  senses, 
nor  can  it  satisfy  us  to  depend  upon  others  to  see  for  us. 
The  best  gauge  is  one's  own  experience.  Knowing  this, 
I  depend  upon  my  own  sight  to  believe  and  to  see. 

Sight  is  the  all  embracing  sense  of  the  other  senses. 
Without  sight  we  are  less  than  if  we  were  without  any 
other  sense.  Seeing,  like  hearing,  demands  tranquillity 
and  peace,  dignity  —  spiritual  focus.  One  of  the  de- 
ficiencies of  general  culture  in  modern  times  is  the  lack 
of  the  power  of  observation.  Real  seeing  is  not  a  lens 
process.  It  is  mind  sight,  mind  operating,  evoking 
comprehension,  grasp,  tactility  through  seeing.  Sight 
or  seeing  must  not  be  limited  to  merely  the  earthly  or 
the  existent.  To  see  a  measurable  height  is  also  to  see  the 
immeasurable  dimension.  It  is  then  a  vision.  It  is 
to  penetrate  with  the  light  of  the  mind  all  that  the  eye 
beholds  or  all  that  the  eye  touches.  To  see  a  thing 
is  to  see  its  inlierent  spirit,  as  the  X-ray  sees  the  physi- 
cal internal  structure  of  matter.  To  see  is  to 
throw  the  light  of  one's  soul  upon  objects,  illum- 
ining them  with  a  spiritual  transcendence  or  radiance. 
To  see  many  things  by  momentarily  casting  one's  eyes 
upon  many  things  is  to  see  but  a  blur,  which  like  a 
storm  befogs  the  mind.  To  see  is  to  think.  To  see  is 
to  awaken  the  inner,  the  potential,  with  the  reality  of 
the  outer.  Sight  when  infused  with  spirit  makes  the 
outer  world  address    itself    to    the    inner,    and    when 


38 


I 


thought  takes  cognizance  of  this  correspondence,  it  is 
hke  the  spark  of  two  currents. 

To  see  an  art  work  casually  is  a  pleasant  experience, 
but  to  come  in  touch  with  the  vision,  the  spirit  of  the 
maker  of  it,  is  seeing  in  participation  and  it  is  then  not 
only  a  gratification  but  an  exaltation.  For  I  feel  that 
through  art  fresh  sight  is  still  in  its  living  process, 
penetrating  the  infinite  unknown.  A  superior  art 
work  finds  a  destiny  of  great  distinction;  an  inferior 
work  unmakes  itself  through  this  time-filtering  process 
by  not  being  looked  upon  again  and  again.  Spirit 
cements  matter  forms;  without  spirit  no  significant 
forms  can  be  built.  To  become  intimate  with  an  art 
work  one  must  unmake  and  make  it  again  with  his  eye- 
hands  and  mind-eyes.  Thus  one  not  only  sees  the  en- 
semble but  the  units,  and  one  can  more  easily  enter  and 
feel  the  intervals  of  time  and  of  space  and  the  moods 
composite  in  the  work  of  art  in  its  plastic  formation.  To 
see  is  to  ask,  to  discover,  to  discern.  To  look  is  to  listen  to 
the  silent.  Through  one's  eyes  the  outer  worlds  make 
their  impression  or  imprint  upon  the  inner  visual  screen, 
and  this  the  mind  sees  and  gives  over  to  feeling.  The 
result  is  the  proof  of  the  quality  of  sensitiveness  and 
refinement  and  of  the  alertness  of  the  receptive  con- 
sciousness.   Seeing  is  a  gift  —  a  blessing  from  God. 

The  great  silent  mountain,  the  vastness  of  the  ocean, 
the  great  worlds  of  colored  matter  in  light  must  be 
heard  through  the  eye.  I  feel  that  the  inner  feeling  of 
awe  and  grandeur  is  a  spiritual  breathing  and  hearing. 
"Wlien  the  heart  upheaves  it  is  quite  different  from  the 
mere  act  of  respiration.  This  silent  inner  breathing  of 
the  atmosphere  of  the  fourth  dimension  is  audible,  lum- 

[    39    1 


inous  music  to  the  soul.    It  is  the  spirit  symphony  heard 
by  the  senses  in  attendance. 

Memory  colors  the  gone  and  apprehends  the  coming. 
One  cannot  remember  the  symphony  as  aerially 
organized  colored  sound  volumes  or  forms  with  their 
string  and  brass  and  wind  atoms  floating  through  un- 
bounded space.  One  includes  in  his  memory  of  such 
music  the  very  mass  of  the  musicians,  their  individual 
position  and  their  geometric  arrangement;  also 
chandeliers,  aisles,  balconies,  faces  and  dress.  All 
things  enter  into  the  color  of  the  memory  of  the 
music.  Sight  or  observation  of  tilings  result  in  a 
more  emphatic,  a  more  impressionable  memory. 
The  memory  sees  the  play  of  life  after  the  fall 
of  the  curtain.  It  binds  scene  with  scene,  act  with  act, 
epoch  with  epoch.  Memory  of  sight  fills  emptiness  of 
space,  as  memory  of  music  fills  silence.  Memory  of 
sight  pre-arranges  and  even  ordains.  With  memory  of 
sight  I  lift  and  transport  whole  spheres.  Then  I  live 
and  possess  all  that  my  eyes  ever  beheld,  and  my  imag- 
ination projects  that  memory  into  still  more  infinite 
spheres.  Memory  can  relive  the  gone.  Memory  of 
sight  is  the  great  spiritual  vision  windowed  into  the 
infinite.  Through  memory  of  sight  the  whole  universe 
enriches  us.  The  eye  is  the  ever-grasping  sense.  To 
see,  to  remember,  is  to  prepare  as  for  prayer.  To  see, 
to  penetrate  the  yet  unseen,  the  yet  unborn,  spiritually, 
is  to  keep  clear  the  vision. 


[    40 


The  Urge  in  Art 

[IIPE  EXPRESSION  is  an  answer 
to  a  spiritual  call.  A  voice,  a  power,  a 
god  of  art  hidden  somewhere  in  our 
spirit-self,  calls  us,  selects  us,  urges  us 
to  tell,  to  give  proof  —  plastic  proof  of 
our  consciousness.  To  one  thus  chosen,  expression  is 
inevitable.  It  becomes  a  necessity,  a  hope.  One  must 
express  himself  if  he  hears  this  inner  call,  or  else  his 
spirit  stifles  and  his  hope  smothers.  Once  one  hears  this 
inner  call,  his  sole  purpose  becomes  expression.  It  is 
through  us  that  time  passes,  and  it  demands  of  us  proof 
of  having  been  in  us,  and  of  our  having  been  in  it. 
Without  proof  time  fills  whole  ages  with  darkness. 
Times  asks  for  souvenirs  from  us  to  bring  to  the  yet  un- 
born, whether  it  be  a  Totem  Pole,  a  Hopi  Katzina,  a 
Buddha,  a  Chichen-Itza,  a  Wingless  Victory,  or  a  Venus 
de  Milo;  whether  it  be  a  crude  drawing  on  the  handle 
of  a  tool;  whether  it  be  in  tattooing,  or  in  a  Banipense 
head  of  Kassai.  Once  we  treasure  time,  the  urge  in  us 
to  fill  time  with  light  is  beyond  earthly  measure.  As 
creative  beings  we  are  like  stars  in  time. 

Physical  well-being,  or  existence,  requires  food  and 
shelter,  but  life  in  its  highest  cannot  live  without  art. 
The  soul  craves  for  nourishment  and  if  the  spirit  be 
starved,  animalism  and  materialism  set  open  the  doors 
that  lead  to  the  dark  chambers  of  horror  and  waste. 
By  spirit  I  mean  the  aroma,  the  significance,  the 
exaltation,  the  flower,  the  wonder  of  our  several 
active  living  senses.    Physically,  the  senses  are  for  use. 

[  «  .1 


Spiritually,  the  senses  are  for  beauty,  but  in  higher  life 
the  physical  is  subservient  to  the  spiritual,  as  use  is  to 
beauty.  It  is  this  strife  between  the  ideal  and  the  ma- 
terial that  proves  the  spiritual  worth  of  whole  races 
or  nations  as  well  as  of  individuals.  This  struggle  in  us 
for  a  high  human  excellence  gives  birth  to  that  inner 
urge  for  creation.  Art  is  the  symbol  of  proof  of  the 
better  in  us.  Every  art  work  signifies  the  victory 
of  the  ideal  over  the  material.  And  we  have  blackest 
proof  of  the  reverse  in  our  day.  War  is  waste  and 
destruction,  while  the  function  and  mission  of  art  is 
creation  and  harmony. 

Expression  is  born  in  stillness  and  in  solitude. 
It  is  as  if  one  wei'e  listening  to  time  and  telling  what 
he  hears.  That  telling  might  be  art,  literature,  science, 
or  philosophy.  If  it  is  plastic,  it  cannot  be  in  words 
or  in  theories.  It  is  this  pressure  from  within  that 
demands  of  us  the  firmest  grip  upon  matter  in  order 
to  make  it  tangible.  Hence  the  more  real  the  means, 
the  more  real  is  the  ideal.  As  there  are  infinite  numbers 
of  molcules  and  even  atoms  in  the  parts  (however 
infinitesimal)  of  various  materials,  so  much  are  there 
molecules,  if  I  may  term  them  so,  or  atoms  of  thought, 
of  phantasy,  of  emotion,  that  urge  on  their  shape,  their 
character,  as  the  inherent  dynamic  powers  that  shape 
matter.  It  is  this  union  or  contact  of  thought  and 
matter,  this  psychic  oscillation,  that  causes  the  inner 
urge  for  expression.  The  intensity  of  the  gifts 
we  cultivate,  or  possess  by  birth,  determines  the  excel- 
lence of  our  creation.  Principles  become  only  vague  the- 
ories and  finally  perish  unless  their  cementing  forms, 
molecules    or    atoms,    are    organized    into    art    forms 

[    42    ] 


which  satisfy  the  spirit  of  man.  Principles  live  only 
in  the  works  they  govern.  They  must  be  embodied 
in  clay  and  sound,  etc.  Then  a  pause  —  and  then  on 
rhythmically  to  more  expression.  Thus  from  person 
to  person,  from  age  to  age,  from  clime  to  clime,  time 
bejewels  itself  with  the  necklace  of  these  jewels. 

Art  is  the  real  history  of  nations.  Their  politics, 
their  wars,  their  commerce,  are  but  records,  as  the  calen- 
dar or  the  clock  is  not  time  itself.  They  are  the  material 
necessities  and  means  of  counting  up  time.  The  de- 
struction of  Gothic  cathedrals  and  monuments  is  like 
cutting  an  artery  in  the  veins  of  time.  For 
art  bleeds  with  even  a  thicker  and  hotter  blood 
than  the  blood  of  animal  or  human  life.  Nature  takes 
care  of  itself  and  easily  duplicates  or  reproduces  itself, 
while  art  can  not  do  this.  Often  it  lets  whole 
ages  go  by  without  asking  for  a  contribution.  Nature 
becomes  art  only  through  us.  Indeed  art  is  nature. 
Life  is  precious,  but  the  purpose  of  life,  the  urge,  the 
significance  of  life  are  the  flowers:  art,  literature  and 
philosophy.  It  is  this  inner  urge  in  us  that  cries 
"Create,  Create,  Create."  Creation  is  the  highest  form 
of  life.  Destruction  is  the  lowest  form  of  death.  Some- 
times destruction  may  be  necessary,  but  destroying 
something  before  we  have  anything  to  replace  it,  is 
sheer  malice  and  vandalism.  It  is  answer- 
ing or  satisfying  the  devil's  urge  —  the  material 
urge.  Some  may  even  lose  the  distinctions  between 
evil  and  good,  between  beauty  and  mediocrity 
and  justify  each  without  discrimination,  but  then,  why 
not  call  the  sun  the  moon;  and  iron,  water?  Such 
argument  is  futile  and  even  blasphemous.     Creation 

[    43   1 


makes  for  consistency,  for  truth  and  for  belief  and  we 
draw  these  quahties  only  from  our  spiritual  gifts. 

Those  who  create  and  feel  the  urge  for  creation 
doubt  not;  and  they  seek  not  for  excuses  not  to  create. 
They  seek  not  satisfaction  in  corrupt  argument  or 
in  warped  theory  or  logic,  as  are  those  who  listen 
not  or  are  deaf  to  the  inner  call.  Such  poison 
the  flowers  of  life,  the  color  and  the  aroma.  Creation 
is  realization.  Metaphysical  argument  is  never  more 
than  verbal  supposition.  Even  physical  science  proves 
the  blasphemous  folly  of  words  without  deeds.  And  even 
words  are  nothing  if  their  material  equivalent  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  idea  intended  to  be  conveyed.  Quality 
of  plastic  art  or  of  music  may  be  spoken  of,  and  de- 
scribed in  words  —  the  common  medium  —  but  the 
quality  and  even  the  purpose  of  the  music,  of  the  poem, 
of  the  sculpture,  of  the  carving,  of  the  picture,  is  regard- 
less of  the  words  or  the  terms  that  may  be  used  in  nam- 
ing or  describing  them. 

Participation  that  is  personal  experience,  or  creative 
work,  is  the  sole  and  most  real  conviction.  Words  are 
nothing  without  the  power  of  evoking  ideas.  Looking 
into  emptiness  or  space  and  calling:  "Ship,  lion,  John 
grass,"  does  not  mean  that  these  things  are  there.  And 
I  ask  those  who  would  say  "I  imagine  them  there,"  how 
and  where  they  got  the  first  idea  of  such  things  as  ship, 
grass,  John,  if  not  from  previous  visible,  touchable, 
weighable,  movable,  existing,  living  things,  like  grass, 
ship,  lion,  etc.  Even  a  dream,  however  phantastic,  is  the 
child  of  a  real  experience.  Things  wth  their  peculiarities 
and  attributes  of  character  begin  to  impress  themselves 
upon  our  memory  through  experience  —  that  is,  through 

[  41  ] 


our  senses,  and  if  the  ship  had  been  called  lion  and 
the  grass  John,  it  would  make  no  difference.  But 
in  reality  the  ship  is  not  John,  and  though  some  in- 
sist, for  the  sake  of  modern  art  or  literature,  that  the 
ship  may  be  John,  yet  we  can  easily  infer  the  signifi- 
cance of  this  "modern"  language,  or  of  such  creative  lib- 
erty. I  should  rather  say  destructive  liberty.  Such 
"art"  makes  dark  gaps  in  time.  To  urge  on  expression  is 
to  reach  out  for  matter  in  all  of  its  phases.  Thus  only 
is  art  born. 


[   45   ] 


Revelation 

ATURE  in  all  of  its  phases,  moods  and 
seasons  waits  for  man  to  speak  for  her. 
For  man  to  tell  of  his  spiritual  com- 
munion with  nature  is  art.  Nature  is 
art  through  man.  When  art  builds  on 
art,  art  dies.  When,  however  minute,  art  comes 
through  nature,  it  plants  its  own  seed  for  its  blooming 
in  seasonable  time  and  place.  Man  is  born  and  finds 
nature  waiting  for  him.  Nature  waits  for  man  and 
his  inspiration  for  hope  of  realization.  In  the  womb 
of  nature  there  are  as  many  art  forms  for  the  future 
as  there  were  for  the  past.  It  is  only  when  one  addresses 
himself  to  nature  in  deep  reverence,  in  silence  and  isola- 
tion, that  he  hears  response.  In  this  absorption  one 
hears  voices  from  the  mother  inherent.  It  is  a  gift 
as  well  as  a  blessing  to  commune  and  to  express 
in  the  language  of  art  this  communion.  Art  then  tells 
not  of  the  obvious.  It  is  the  essence  of  nature,  its  form 
and  mood  being  made  concrete  through  man's  phantasy, 
to  furnish  the  appropriate  plastic  means  that  make 
for  art. 

Wlien  nature  is  reborn  in  us,  it  calls  itself  art. 
Creation,  or  revelation,  is  getting  things  out  of  the  womb 
of  the  inherent.  It  is  an  act  of  appearance,  of  illumina- 
tion, and  of  growth  as  marvelous  and  as  tragic  as  is  birth. 
It  is  like  birth,  with  greatest  joy  in  its  greatest  pain. 
Creation  makes  more  infinite  the  source  of  its  origin, 
as  it  makes  more  infinite  the  child  of  its  inherence. 
The  inherent  and  the  visible  or  audible  become  more 

[    47    ] 


resonant  and  vibrant  through  inspired  creation.  In- 
finity expands,  and  revelation  itself  broadens  its 
bounds.  Revelation  marvels  at  itself  and  its  own 
wonder  makes  for  more.  It  is  good  to  imagine  more 
yet  unrevealed,  that  we  may  in  imagination  live  with 
the  creations  of  the  future.  To  apprehend  this  is 
to  put  time  into  time.  Inherence  is  pregnant  with  the 
future.  Revelation  lifts  the  pall  that  shrouds  infinity 
and  in  this  is  discovery  or  contribution.  To  reveal  is  to 
focus  the  sun  of  our  senses  upon  lifeless  inherence  and 
to  make  it  sprout  into  life  and  light.  To  reveal  is  to 
plough  and  to  plant. 

Real  poetry  is  not  mere  sing-song  pleasantry  or  de- 
scription. It  is  and  should  be  prophecy.  Art  is  not 
mere  representation,  it  is  and  should  be  interpretation 
—  revelation.  One  picture,  one  poem,  one  symphony, 
should  be  so  potential  as  to  cause  to  vibrate  and  to  urge 
on  out  of  inherence,  still  another  symphony,  poem  or  ex- 
pression, and  infinitely  thus.  What  in  nature  is  hidden, 
art  must  reveal  and  make  significant.  Revelation  is 
art  inducing  other  art  again.  Art  must  always  surpass 
itself,  with  promise  of  more  than  itself. 

Nature's  secret  or  prophecy  is  in  stillness,  in  a  wait- 
ing to  be  heard  by  art.  Its  pulse  is  its  mood,  its  music  its 
time,  its  essence  the  seed  of  fruitful  ages  not  yet  born. 
I  crave  to  know  and  I  listen  and  I  feel  and  I  see.  Na- 
ture inspires  me  by  its  living  rhythm.  Its  waves  of 
stillness  that  vibrate  over  its  prairies,  in  its  forests,  over 
its  mountains  and  valleys,  and  its  oceans,  in  the  solidity 
and  strength  of  its  mountain  strata,  in  its  minerals 
and  in  its  hidden  rocks,  stir  in  me  the  feeling  of  visible 
cathedrals  and  towers,  and  of  orchestras  and  poems. 

[    '18    ] 


Nature  impels  me  to  personify  the  inanimate.  Art  is 
its  tongue.  Poetry  speaks  the  dialogue  between  the 
seas  and  the  continents,  between  the  seasons,  between  the 
sun  and  the  moon,  and  between  ebb  and  tide.  Art  like 
an  orchestra  plays  nature's  winds  and  storms  cyclonic, 
and  makes  audible  its  breath,  till  we  live  its  joy  of  crea- 
tion and  its  tragedy  of  waste  and  long  for  still  more  crea- 
tion and  revelation.  We  are  the  poetry  and  music  and 
philosophy  of  nature.  Our  life  is  its  flower.  We,  with 
our  human  power  to  reveal,  are  nature's  art,  and  our 
revelation  of  nature's  inherence  is  our  art.  The  Par-  / 
thenon  or  the  Rheims  Cathedral  or  a  Buddha  Temple 
or  an  electric  dynamo  once  slept  in  the  quarries  and 
dreamt  in  geometry. 

Works  of  art  are  man's  revelation  of  nature's  con- 
tents. He  who  reveals  prophecies.  We  know  nature 
better  through  art.  Science  proves  to  the  mind;  art  re- 
veals the  heart.  To  infer  from  the  visible  the  invisible,  to 
penetrate  the  opaque,  to  soar  high  into  space,  and  to  dive 
deep  into  the  seas,  to  walk  through  fissures  to  the 
centre  of  the  earth,  to  imagine  one's  self  being  a  fish 
or  a  bird,  is  to  penetrate  more  into  the  spheres  of  the  un- 
known. To  imagine  one's  self  discharging  the  functions 
of  inanimate  bodies  is  to  ally  one's  self  to  the  inanimate 
for  the  time  and  to  penetrate  the  world  of  matter,  that 
asserts  itself  to  us  through  the  forms  of  art.  To  invest 
all  darknesses  and  emptinesses,  and  all  inanimate  objects 
with  human  energy  and  feeling,  is  to  reveal  the  mystery 
which  art  alone  can  reveal.  To  transplant  mentally  whole 
continents,  whole  cities;  to  shift  the  immovable,  to  bring 
the  past  into  the  present,  to  bring  the  distant  near,  is 
revelation.      The    psychic    or    spiritual    energy    made 

[    49   ] 


plastic  is  the  purpose  of  a  work  of  art.  Its 
process  of  formation  lies  in  its  spreading  out 
into  infinity  upon  the  waves  of  time  and  of  light.  For 
the  creator  to  cause  this  vibration,  is  one  phase  of  rev- 
elation, and  for  the  spectator  to  receive  these  vibrations 
is  still  another  phase.  Inlierence  on  its  way  to  infinity 
passes  through  the  creator,  doing  this  of  its  own  accord, 
in  measure  and  in  scale  with  the  capacity  of  the  creator, 
becoming  of  form  and  color,  and  of  dynamic  force, 
through  the  human  sense.  Inlierence  is  the  all- 
ness  of  all  we  can  imagine.  It  ranges  from  a  chaos  of 
matter  and  space,  from  nebulous  light  and  gases  and 
hidden  dynamics  to  the  highest  form  of  composition  or 
organization  achieved  by  man  in  art  and  in  science.  To 
become  aware  of  this  innerness  is  revelation;  to  bring 
light  into  the  outer  worlds  is  revelation.  And 
the  making  more  endless  the  endlessness  of  outer  forms 
by  incessant  endeavor  to  find  new  relationship  and  a  new 
interlacing,  is  still  more  revelation.  Revelation  is  not 
merely  surprise.  It  is  a  spiritual  awakening.  It  is 
the  blessing  of  life.  Revelation  makes  for  love  of  life. 
It  relieves  one  of  doubt  in  his  share  of  infinity.  It 
brings  the  breathlessness  of  joy.  Our  spirits  clap  their 
hands  and  the  sound  is  music  to  the  soul.  In  the  mo- 
ment of  revelation  we  live  whole  ages  and  we  join  the 
generations  on  their  way  into  timelessness. 


[    50 


^ 

1^ 

^^^^ 

i 

y 

^M 

1 

1 

1^ 

%< 

E2 

Am^-j^rS}^ 

Art  Consciousness 


jARTHLY  possession  is  material  wealth. 
The  consciousness  of  art,  or  emotional 
perception,  is  the  great  gift  of  life. 
Creative  power  is  rarest,  and  an  art  con- 
sciousness or  an  art  love  is  even  more 
rare  than  earthly  possession.  Believing  or  having 
faith  in  a  supreme  love  or  power  or  virtue  is 
the  life  privilege  of  every  human  being.  I  often  believe 
religion  to  have  been  made  too  useful  while  art,  seem- 
ingly a  luxury,  is  in  reality  most  useful  and  practical. 
Material  wealth  is  satisfied  to  possess;  art  livingly  en- 
joys in  being. 

An  art  consciousness  changes  the  significance  of  all 
in  time  and  space  and  matter.  It  modifies  hope,  it 
changes  proportion,  it  makes  for  new  number.  It  flav- 
ors the  entire  reason  for  being.  The  consciousness  of 
art,  which  ranges  in  intensity  from  creation  to 
appreciation,  develops  a  richer  and  riper  humanity. 
This  art  consciousness  is  the  possessing  of  the 
spirit  of  things,  rather  than  the  matter  of  things. 
The  possession  of  things  is  one's  legal  right  to  things  — 
but  an  art  consciousness  means  the  possession  of  human 
right  —  the  spirit  of  things.  Material  possession  is  an 
outsideness.  Spiritual  or  art  consciousness  is  an  inside- 
ness.  Material  possession  is  finite;  spiritual  con- 
sciousness is  infinite.  Nor  is  there  a  monopoly  of  the 
art  spirit.  There  is  no  apothecary  weight  or  avoirdu- 
pois measure  of  art.  There  is  no  art  text  book,  there  is 
no  school  of  the  science  of  art.    Nor  is  there  a  lecture 

[   51    ] 


wherewith  one  can  explain  away  this  art  consciousness. 
To  try  it  is  to  drain  it  of  its  spirit  as  the  essence  of  a  fruit 
or  of  a  flower  is  drained,  while  its  form  is  destroyed.  This 
art  consciousness  is  an  individual  possession  of  a  univer- 
sality —  of  a  grandeur  that  is  imbedded  in  the  heart  and 
that  hovers  over  all  in  light  and  dark  and  in  space  and  in 
matter,  in  all  the  elements.  It  is  our  soul-echo  and 
even  a  part  of  our  soul  that  reigns  in  spheres 
outside  of  us.  An  art  consciousness  thus  awak- 
ens us  to  more  than  ourselves.  It  helps  us  to  grow  from 
within  toward  the  outer  and  the  more  personal  and  inti- 
mate. It  finds  for  us  parts  of  our  self  outside  of  our  con- 
scious body  self  here.  It  is  our  spirit  self  we  recognize 
in  forms  and  colors  and  sounds  and  light  and  motion 
in  the  wonderful  being  of  the  all.  This  art  consciousness 
is  the  earthly  heaven  that  ties  us,  of  this  visible  sphere, 
to  spheres  never  to  be  metaphysically  accounted  for, 
but  only  spiritually  felt.  It  binds  us  to  Godliness 
in  the  spheres  most  real.  We  are  realizing  more  than 
ever  that  art  is  created  only  through  an  art  conscious 
of  the  inherent  pregnant  with  seed  for  the  real.  Con- 
ception which  art  consciousness  makes  concrete  out- 
wardly, makes  concrete  also  the  inner  hovering  infinity  of 
the  sjjiritual.  Art  awakens  us  to  a  farness,  to  a  beyond- 
ness.  The  materialist  believes  and  accepts  the  obvious, 
the  immediate.  He  is  satisfied  with  the  immature,  the 
uncouth  and  the  vulgar.  That  which  is  wi-apped  in 
layers  of  time  and  which  ripens  to  tenderness,  is  out 
of  his  reach.  To  live  on  without  this  spiritual  conscious- 
ness is  to  live  in  time  without  light  —  it  is  to 
go  about  like  the  hands  of  the  clock  that  know  not 
even  the  wonder  that  they  count  time  away,  that  know 

[    52   ] 


not  that  they  move  from  the  sun  to  the  moon.  To  be 
without  this  spiritual  consciousness  is  like  living  in  a 
house  without  light,  and  spiritual  atmosphere. 

In  earthly  loneliness  many  gods  of  joy  may  dance. 
An  art  consciousness  brings  happiness  such  as  love 
brings,  and  faith  brings.  Art  avoids  the  immediate  and 
will  suffer  itself  through  materialism  on  to  the  beyond. 
Art  consciousness  is  not  like  a  religious  fervor  or  fanati- 
cism. It  is  a  cool  placid  harmony  with  an  understanding 
of  the  spiritual  significance  of  form,  of  the  visible  Godly 
fabric.  It  is  engendered  of  a  great  range  of  taste  and  of 
emotion  and  is  normal  and  healthy.  It  is  not  a  sickly  or 
morbid  aestheticism.  Nor  is  it  a  science  of  art.  It  is,  I 
might  say,  a  clear  logical  spirituality  which  weighs  and 
discerns;  and  engages  us  always  in  the  most  valid  and 
vital.  It  brings  out  the  intrinsic  values  and  establishes 
relationship.  It  quickens  the  inanimate.  It  causes  still- 
ness into  music,  matter  into  form  and  makes  darkness 
light.    It  makes  for  a  life  spiritually  intellectual. 

It  is  not  so  much  the  lack  of  religion  as  the  death 
of  art  that  has  caused  much  of  the  present  strife.  The 
spirit  and  glory,  the  colored  atmosphere  that  lives  when 
art  flourishes  is  gone.  We  must  awaken  it,  arouse  it, 
coerce  it,  but  we  cannot  hope  to  do  this  with  distorted 
values,  with  false  motives  and  nem-otic  aesthetics.  We 
must  realize  that  we  cannot  urge  on  the  spirit  with  scien- 
tific speed  or  with  dynamos.  Creation  is  rare  and  always 
will  be,  but  art  is  nothing  if  it  does  not  stir  or  kindle  the 
art  consciousness  in  a  people. 

Art  consciousness  will  come  through  a  greater 
art  conscience  in  the  creative  artist  or  artisan.  When  one 
listens  to  the  rhythmic  tapping  of  the  rain,  or  the  roar 

[   53   ] 


of  the  winds,  the  clash  of  thunder,  or  the  sighs  of  the 
ocean ;  when  one  discerns  the  color  differences,  the  form, 
and  song  fugues  in  matter-form,  and  out  of  all  this  per- 
ceives the  voice  and  the  touch  of  inherence  in  the  several 
kingdoms  of  natm-e;  when  one  is  susceptible  to  the  si- 
lences that  speak,  to  emptinesses  that  are  full,  to 
the  seeming  vague  or  vacuous  that  teem  with  life  —  that 
is  the  art  consciousness.  In  the  creative  spirit  the  emo- 
tion is  so  intense  that  he  frees  himself  only  by  giving 
birth  to  his  emotion  through  chosen  art  means,  making 
room  thereby  for  intenser  emotion  —  and  this,  the 
aesthetic  rhythm  and  the  music  of  time,  is  the  art  con- 
sciousness. 

The  art  consciousness  is  the  human  conscious- 
ness of  the  God  in  man.  He  becomes  conscious 
of  art  or  inherent  art  whose  senses  become  highly  spirit- 
ually susceptible.  Through  art  consciousness  a  great 
tenderness  and  subtlety  is  born.  It  takes  enormously 
but  its  recompense  is  heavenly.  In  involves  a  keen  and 
lively  appreciation  of  principles.  It  goes  further  when 
the  person,  alert  to  the  innerness  of  art,  of  the  unborn  in 
art,  becomes  either  creator  or  appreciator.  This  needs  no 
metaphysical  treatise.  It  is  as  clear  as  crystal.  The  big 
thick  books  on  aesthetics  are  merely  books  on  aesthetics 
—  but  not  art,  living  art  itself,  nor  art  in  the  inner 
vision,  in  the  throbbing  emotion. 

The  art  consciousness  is  the  great  life  consciousness. 
Its  product  and  the  appreciation  of  its  product  are  the 
very  flower  of  life.  Its  presence  in  man  is  Godliness 
on  earth.  It  humanizes  mankind.  Were  it  spread 
broadcast  it  would  do  away  with  that  dry,  cold  intel- 
lectualism,  which,  dead  and  unfired,  always  seeks  refuge 

[    54   ] 


in  pretending  to  be  more  than  it  is.  Art  or  art  conscious- 
ness is  the  real  proof  of  intense  genuine  human  sympa- 
thy. It  oozes  spiritual  expression.  Were  it  fostered  it 
would  sooner  solve  the  great  modern  economic  problem 
than  any  labor  propaganda.  A  lack  of  this  art  conscious- 
ness, on  the  part  of  both  capital  and  labor,  is  one 
cause  of  this  great  modern  struggle.  Were  this  art 
consciousness  more  general,  material  possession  would 
be  less  valued;  the  covetous  spirit  would  soon  die 
out.  Art  socializes  more  than  socialism  with  its 
platform  and  its  platitudes.  Economists  go  not 
deep  enough  into  the  modern  monetary  disease.  They 
deal  only  with  materialism.  They  concentrate  only 
upon  what  is  obvious,  the  physical  starvation  of  the 
toiling  class,  but  never  do  they  see  or  seem  to  realize  the 
spiritual  starvation  or  the  lack  of  an  art  consciousness  in 
both  capital  and  labor.  They  would  argue  that  the 
material  relief  must  come  first.  I  reply,  now  as 
always,  we  must  begin  with  the  spiritual.  I  do  not 
see,  however,  how  the  spiritual  or  aesthetic  can 
be  separated  from  the  material.  The  common  solu- 
tion of  this  great  problem  is  too  dry,  too  matter  of  fact, 
too  calculated,  too  technical,  too  scientifically  intellectual 
and  not  enough  intellectually  imaginative.  Art  con- 
sciousness is  not  merely  a  form  of  etiquette,  nor  a  phase 
of  culture  —  it  is  life  —  the  quality  of  sensitive  breath- 
ing, seeing,  hearing,  developed  to  a  high  true  normal 
spirituality.  Man  would  value  man  more.  The  wonder 
of  and  the  faith  in  other  human  beings  would  kindle  a 
new  social  and  spiritual  life. 

To  prove  that  there  is  anything  new  is  very  difficult. 
It  is  rather  a  replacing  of  things  and  of  epochs,  and  a 

[    55    ] 


new  juxtaposition  thereof  that  make  for  the  newness  of 
the  old.  Inherence,  the  now  beginning  and  now  ending 
of  the  allness  of  all,  contains  in  its  endlessness  the  new 
of  the  old.  Emotional  truth  or  sjnritual  logic  is  most 
severe  and  stern,  and  infinitely  more  embracing,  than 
any  intellection.  That  which  has  alwaj^s  been  quality 
in  art  —  the  essence  of  the  expression  of  emo- 
tion, of  spirituality  brought  to  earth,  brought  to  the 
senses  by  means  of  art  forms,  that  we  and  also  genera- 
tions after  us,  will  find  to  nourish  the  spirit,  and  the  emo- 
tions and  it  will  be  as  always  the  essence  of  emotion.  The 
soul  will  not  be  satisfied  with  substitutes  for  its  own 
godly  nutrition ;  it  will  demand  the  highest  expression  of 
revelation.  This  cannot  be  calculated  emotion,  it  cannot 
be  the  means  of  conscious,  frozen  sophistication  —  or 
metaphysics  —  however  well  meant.  The  plant  will  not 
grow  in  showers  of  sand,  when  by  nature  it  requires  dew 
and  rain.  It  will  not  bloom  or  color  or  form  in  the  light 
of  a  lamp  when  it  needs  the  sun.  The  sun  com- 
ing in  contact  with  its  flower  part  in  the  flower,  will 
make  the  flower  that  delights  the  human  spirit  with 
its  beauty  and  its  aroma,  until  the  flower  is  itself  a 
little  sun  to  warm  the  soul. 

To  calculate  is  to  bar  out  infinity.  To  intellectual- 
ize  is  to  smother  the  breath  of  fancy,  yea,  of  hope. 
The  art  consciousness  in  us  is  the  mild  whisper  of 
the  Gods  that  awaken  to  voice  in  us.  With  such  emotion 
Giotto  painted  and  built  his  tower;  with  such  emotion, 
Greco  painted,  Beethoven  composed  and  Paganini 
played.  With  such  emotion  the  creative  spirit  builds 
form  out  of  chaos. 

To  intellectualize  emotion,  is  like  holding  the  mirror 

[   56   ] 


in  front  of  itself.  I  walk  on  the  lonely  prairie,  the 
sun  shines  upon  me  and  the  earth.  The  winds  blow 
by  me  and  about  me,  carrying  to  me  the  aroma 
and  the  song  of  the  prairie  and  of  the  trees; 
and  when  the  light  is  my  guide,  the  color  my  joy,  and 
the  wind  my  orchestra,  and  I  am  companioned  by  lone- 
hness  —  I  addressing,  hoping,  wanting,  for  the  more 
of  mj'self  —  I  have  the  art  consciousness.  Conception 
feels  entirety,  it  figures  not  mincingly.  Forms  in 
inherence  are  felt  out,  not  thought  out.  Feeling 
mothers  thought.  Thinking  makes  definite  —  feeling 
makes  infinite.  Intellection  does  to  emotion  what 
water  does  to  fire.  Whatever  its  means  for  record 
it  is  at  best  only  a  scientific  process.  Concep- 
tion is  the  flame  from  infinite  to  infinite;  calculation  is 
the  brief  measured  space  or  pause  in  which  the  intensity 
of  conception  cools.  Conception  is  inexplicable  won- 
der —  it  is  heavenly.  Calculation  is  cold  and  material. 
It  frightens  the  spirit  away.  Conception  sees  the  living 
beyond;  calculation  only  stares  at  the  immediate  and 
blows  out  the  flames  of  wonder.  Calculation  often 
arrives  at  its  own  nothingness.  It  is  no  more  than 
mere  mental  wandering.  But  art  consciousness  binds 
infinity  afore  to  infinity  after.  It  feeds  the  soul.  It  is 
the  life  spell  between  breath  and  breath,  between  pulse 
and  pulse. 

I  would  ask  those  who  argue  that  modern  art 
can  eliminate  emotion  to  look  straight  at  the  modern 
sun,  and  give  a  modern  art  account  of  what  they  see. 
Or  will  they  yet  invent  an  "artiscope"  to  examine  the 
intellectual  germs  in  one  art  germ,  and  record  their 
calculation  in  paint  and  canvas.     Will  they  be  able  to 

[    57   ] 


register  what  color  in  moonlight  an  art  germ  has  in 
a  flying  machine,  or  in  a  submarine,  or  on  the  Brook- 
lyn Bridge  at  twilight?  Will  they  be  able  to  record 
its  weight,  its  density,  its  temperature?  All  this  in- 
tellect may  yet  do  for  modern  art.  But  what  the  spirit, 
the  art  consciousness,  did  for  art  and  for  life,  as  we  find 
it  in  the  great  museums,  in  temples  and  churches,  is  a 
blessing  to  know,  a  privilege  to  see. 

I  can  imagine  a  cultured  Greek  of  the  time  of 
Pericles  standing  before  a  representative  group 
of  the  much  discussed  modern  pictures  and  sculp- 
tures. Also  a  cultured  Chinaman  of  a  great  art 
dynasty  or  an  ancient  Persian.  And  were  they  each  to 
tell  us  what  they  see  and  feel,  what  a  revela- 
tion it  would  be.  And  though  this  is  impossible,  it 
would  be  far  better  to  imagine  what  they  would  say 
than  to  listen  to  modern  art  criticism.  It  would  be 
far  better  to  see  what  these  ancients  did,  and  to 
imagine  what  such  people  might  say.  But  for  us  to 
hear  them  speak  is  impossible.  If  so  we  must  infer  — 
and  in  such  inference  we  create  each  for  ourselves  our 
own  criticism,  guided  by  our  own  instinctive  tastes  and 
by  the  enduring  qualities  of  the  never  dying  past. 

But  we  must  study  the  antiques.  And  the  more  we 
do  so  the  better  are  we  able  to  discern  the  new  of  to-day, 
even  if  the  intent  differ  greatly  from  the  art  of  the  past. 
There  are  three  great  faults  in  the  modern  art  move- 
ments. They  move  too  much  and  too  fast.  Too  fast 
in  that  they  throw  time  off  the  track  of  infinity.  Mod- 
ern art  is  so  modern  that  it  runs  away  from  art  and  leaves 
art  behind.  Modernity  is  the  art  of  the  future  of 
yesterday.    The  old  art  is  of  the  coming  past. 

[   68  ] 


The  other  day  I  stood  and  looked  at  an  Etruscan 
statue.  It  smiled  its  good  old  peaceful  smile, 
and  I  asked  it  at  what  it  smiles  forever.  And  it  whis- 
pered gently:  "At  the  speed  and  the  noise  of 
modernity." 


[    59   ] 


Purity  in  Art 


MOTION  fails  when  out  of  something 
done  no  spirit  oozes.  When  the 
maker  of  a  thing  invests  not  his  work 
with  that  which  in  master  works 
penetrates  the  heart  and  kindles  the 
soul ;  when  matter,  plastically  reformed,  is  void  of  spirit ; 
when  it  carries  no  message  from  the  visible  imiversal 
to  the  invisible  personal,  then  the  intellect  calls  science 
and  theory  to  its  aid  to  help  make  up  for  the  spiritual. 
But  spiritual  poverty  is  even  sadder  than  physical 
weakness. 

How  grand  and  how  all  is  the  unknown! 
The  unknown  of  the  unborn  is  I  feel  infinitely  more 
than  the  known  of  the  born.  In  so  imagining  the  seem- 
ing-being, how  much  more  real  do  we  make  what  we 
know.  How  much  more  significant  becomes  the  finite  1 
How  much  more  intimate  we  become  with  the  known 
when  we  crave  to  know  the  unknown.  How  neigh- 
borly are  our  senses  to  the  potential  forms  and 
their  significance.  I  am  rich,  I  am  exuberant,  I  am 
spirited  when  I  infer  the  beyond,  the  inherent  unlaiown 
—  infinite,  spaceless,  timeless,  matterless.  In  such 
overwhelming  breathless  moments,  I  embrace  the 
entirety  of  the  unknown.  I  am  then  a  self-more,  more 
with  more  of  the  measureless  dimensions.  I  feel  self 
growing  in  self.  Is  this  not  life?  To  invest  art,  what- 
ever be  the  means,  with  one's  spirit  self,  though  yet 
unlived  and  unborn,  tends  to  pure  expression.  This 
purity  is  omnipotent,  all  inclusive.    Every  birth,  every 

[  61  ] 


growth,  comes  to  speak  and  to  prove  itself  with  its  com- 
ing an  infinitesimal  portion  of  the  infinite.  That  which 
we  live  and  infer  is  its  counterpart.  Birth  is  the  mark 
between  infinity  afore  and  after.  It  is  that  mark  or  event 
in  time  where  and  when  infinity  speaks.  With  birth 
comes  the  finite.  Through  birth  infinity  emerges 
into  the  visible  finite.  The  finite,  if  perceived, 
creates  a  new  momentum  towards  a  new  entry 
into  the  infinite.  It  inhales  as  it  were  of  the 
infinite  and  exhales  its  relief  in  sighs  spiritual  or  ectasy 
placid.  It  needs  no  proof,  no  science  to  come  to  its 
aid.  Science  or  theory  but  mars  it.  For  it  cuts  its 
identity,  ruins  its  unity  and  mis-traces  the  intent  of 
its  origin. 

Ah,  what  color  is  there 

And  what  light. 

Wliat  other  space 

And  what  other  time 

Or  what  other  ALL  is  there? 

This,  to  infer  more  and  more,  as  we  live,  and  this 
to  reveal,  as  we  ripen,  is  expression  pure.  The  pur- 
pose of  such  expression  fails  not  in  creating  the  most 
fitting  means.  Means  that  deaden  not  the  sensibilities 
and  quench  not  the  flame.  Means  that  Iiinder  not, 
repress  not  the  inner  urge,  the  inner  voice.  Pure  ex- 
pression kneads  its  means;  it  caresses,  it  disseminates 
matter.  It  humanizes  the  inanimate  till  the  clay,  or 
the  color,  the  wood  or  the  fabric  speak  for  us.  Expres- 
sion pure  compels  through  intimate  tactile  power  and 
spiritual  motion  of  time.  Expression  pure  is  prophecy, 
is  power  and  warmth  that  reaches  out  of  a  work  of  art 

[    62   1 


and  needs  no  outside  aid  to  call  forth  perceptive 
participation.  It  conveys  itself  into  the  heart 
of  the  spectator  and  stirs  in  him  emotion,  hoped 
for  and  conceived  by  the  creator.  Expression 
pure  goes  never  amiss,  even  if  its  journey  be  ever  so 
long.  Purity  is  a  quality  that  on  its  way  into  infinity 
will  not  mix  and  will  repel  forces  unlike  herself.  Purity 
loses  not  its  identity.  Purity  is  of  a  spiritual  velocity 
that  makes  even  infinity  expand.  Purity  is  the  heavenly 
light  that  makes  brighter  the  light  of  the  earthly.  It 
lights  the  way  toward  perfection,  and  perfection  is  but 
a  pause  in  the  infinite.  This  pause  in  realization,  this 
perfection,  comes  only  of  purity,  which  opens  the 
doors  to  the  beyond.  The  time  between  a  thing  of 
quality  or  of  purity  and  the  one  that  follows  is  this 
pause  —  pure  urges  action  pure  and  again  a  pause. 
The  ideal  is  the  pause  and  the  real  is  the  child  of  the 
ideal.  If  this  be  the  relationship,  the  genealogy,  the 
birth,  the  expression  is  pure.  Thus  purity  of  expression 
is  like  the  longevity  of  races.  Although  time  and  clime 
and  the  unexpected  and  unaccounted  for  modify 
or  evolve  however  much  or  little,  the  origin  is  the 
same  —  the  magnet  of  like  to  like  keeps  and  binds 
them  together.  The  magnet  between  beginning  and 
ending,  the  spirit-magnet  that  draws  the  essence  of 
matter  to  spirit. 

The  moment  purity  begins  to  die  or  wane  —  purity 
the  call  of  perfection  —  perfection  the  call  of  the  in- 
finite, this  call,  or  call  and  its  echo,  growing  fainter  — 
then  birth  or  expression  dies  and  suffers  the  agony  of 
mediocrity,  or  of  aboriginality,  until  intellectual  de- 
spondence and  infamous  impurities  arise. 

[   63   ] 


Purity  may  be  achieved  out  of  a  variety  of  same- 
nesses or  likenesses.    To  avoid  monotony  in  this  respect 
is    a    work    of    rare    power.     For  in  ehmination  one 
knows    the    discarded  as  well  as  the  chosen.    Purity 
makes   its   demand.      Realization    gives     it    over     to 
matter  and  time.     To  keep  the  one  large  out  of  the 
many  large,  to  keep  the  one  small  out  of  a  million  small, 
the  one  blue  out  of  the  million  blues;  to  put  together 
the  like  with  the  like  and    to    obtain    variety,    is    an 
achievement  toward  simplicity  and  rarity,  and  therefore 
of  purity.   The  ancients  prove  this  as  also  do  the  great 
modern  artists.     The  great    strength    underlying    the 
principles  of  art,  call  out   of   the    infinite   to   be   em- 
bodied and  demand  realization.     With  simplest  means 
one  is  safe  on  the  way  to  purity  of  expression.     The 
fundamental  principles  of  art  are  the  guide  posts  that 
mark  the  way ;  and  not  this  alone  —  the  very  matter  in 
the  means  of  expression  seems  to  want  in  its  inanimate 
way  to  help  make  for  this  purity.   Matter  suffers  when 
treated  uninspiringly.  I  feel  that  the  violin  enjoys  being 
in   the   hands   of   a   master  musician  —  she  communes 
with  him;  for  tones  love  to  be  so  disintegrated  that 
they  speak  or  joy  or  weep  for  the  inner,  locked  in  the 
heart,  and  they  love  to  make  figures  of  color-sound. 
I  feel  that  pigments  love  to  be  so  juxtaposed  by  a  gifted 
colorist  as  to  pour  forth  a  veritable  garden  of  aroma 
to  the  eye;  that  forms  or  volumes  love  to  be  so  con- 
structed that  they  thunder    with    visual    volumes    of 
silence  in  their  own  domains;   that  words   are   pleased 
to  come  from  the  lips  of  wisdom  and  to  clothe  fittingly 
inspired  thought ;  and  that  the  wood  or  clay  or  iron  knows 
when  it  is  being  used  or  shaped  by  creative  loving  hands. 

[  fi*  ] 


When  form  and  color  speak  their  own  language  and 
serve  expression,  instantly  fired  or  spontaneously  con- 
ceived —  then  expression  in  its  distinct  abode  is  on 
the  way  to  purity,  its  means  being  the  natural  vehicle. 
When  with  form  and  color,  words  or  tone,  the  inner 
dormant  range  of  tints  and  of  moods  is  expressed, 
expression  is  on  the  way  to  purity.  I  say  on  the 
way,  for  infinity  is  the  road  to  Eternity,  and  to  fill 
eternity  with  the  ripest  and  sanest  expression  of  our 
consciousness  is  the  essence  as  well  as  the  purpose  of  life. 

Purity  in  art,  like  creative  thought,  opens  infinity 
with  the  key  of  pure  living.  It  penetrates,  it  pierces 
matter. 

In  expression  pure,  thought  thinks  ideas  not  words; 
color  thinks  not  chromatics  or  the  science  of  pigments, 
form  thinks  not  geometry  nor  physics  nor  chem- 
istry. Expression  pure  feels  the  physical  laws  govern- 
ing matter.  It  never  turns  art  into  a  science 
or  a  process.  When  thought  wanders,  when  ex- 
pression is  not  pure  or  constructive,  it  searches  for 
means,  but  when  thought  or  expression  flows  by  pres- 
sure of  the  inner  urge  or  message,  then  means 
happen  and  are  secondary.  "When  art  calculates, 
it  creates  a  chasm  between  expression  and  means, 
and  the  more  it  calculates  the  more  do  the  means 
predominate,  until  the  intent  of  expi'ession  goes  amiss. 
The  inner  m*ge  or  expression  pure  cools  through  calcu- 
lation, and  science  bars  its  birth  —  its  emergence. 

Expression  pure  flows  like  the  mountain  stream, 
flowing  from  infinity  into  infinity,  making  its  bed, 
finding  its  way  as  it  flows,  flows,  flows.  And  as  the 
stream  fills  the  sea,  so  expression  fills  the  soul.     The 

[   65   ] 


flow  of  the  stream  dances  and  ripples  in  the  dazzling 
sun,  bounds  over  rocks,  over  hills,  and  then  joys 
and  rhymes  its  way  into  infinity.  In  calm  and  in  pas- 
sion, in  the  strife  to  reach,  flows  the  stream,  flows  ex- 
pression —  from  the  soul  again  the  soul  to  fill. 


[   66 


The  Equilibrium  of  the  Inanimate 

O  whatever  extent  form  might  be  carried 
in  sculpture,  architecture,  or  decoration, 
the  principles  of  organization  —  the 
wonder  and  gratification  of  equilibrium, 
of  nature's  infinite  formations  of  its  own 
master  creations  form  the  basis  of  all  art.  Consistent- 
ly directed  energy,  impulsed  by  emotion,  derived  and 
conceived  from  contact,  actual  experience  and  intent 
observation,  as  well  as  the  urge  of  the  spiritual,  and 
an  inner  individual  correspondence  of  soul  and  mat- 
ter, come  of  the  breathlessness  and  poetry  inspired 
in  man  by  the  grandeur  of  the  outer  visible  calling 
forth  the  hidden  invisible  and  so  transplant  nature 
into  art.  Matter  as  dealt  with  in  art  expression 
has  its  earthly  physical  properties,  and  also  its  spir- 
itual destiny  and  significance.  Matter  lying  still  and 
invisible  in  its  waiting  performs  a  function.  Matter 
always  waits  for  spirit  —  spirit  as  guided  by  nature's 
own  laws  jDoints  out  its  way. 

The  artist  soon  recognizes  that  the  laws  of  art  are 
like  the  physical  properties  of  matter,  which  hold  atoms 
together. 

The  feeling  of  art-form  in  us  should  correspond 
to  the  very  laws  of  energy,  of  consistency,  of  equilib- 
rium, of  adhesion  and  cohesion,  of  gravity  in  nature. 
Questful  living  constantly  seeks  for  means  of  corre- 
spondence with  matter  elements,  seeks  for  means 
peculiar  to  the  instincts  and  gifts  of  the  one  in 
quest  for  the  ever  more.     The  physical  laws,   being 

[   67   ] 


of  matter,  when  spiritualized,  are  transformed  to  art 
or  poetry.  The  physical  laws  of  matter  must  be  felt 
into  becoming  the  spiritual  laws  of  art. 

One  outer  touch  or  stroke  upon  matter,  if  only  em- 
bodied with  physical  energy  —  and  with  high  spiritual 
desire  or  purpose,  extracts  outwardljs  visibly,  its  inner 
hidden  essence.  To  impregnate  emptiness  with  form,  to 
charge  hovering  spirit  with  visible  sound  and  with  the 
acoustics  of  vision,  yea,  of  optics,  stirring  light  and  dark 
and  color ;  to  fill  waiting  weighless  space  with  weight  of 
shape  —  to  fill  space  with  form ;  and  to  possess  the 
spirit  breath  of  all  this,  in  the  flame  of  exaltation,  is  art. 
The  very  fluid  of  energy  —  the  flame  made  con- 
crete, the  emotion,  the  craving  given  birth  to,  breathed 
as  it  were  into  matter,  becomes  art.  Space  thus  en- 
livened and  matter  form  thus  illumined  by  light,  aug- 
ment each  other  into  still  greater  particular  excellence. 

The  energy  or  inner  life  of  matter,  and  its  des- 
tiny of  equilibrium,  compelled  what  is  known  as 
geometry  into  existence.  The  sphere,  the  cube,  the 
cylinder  and  the  various  single  and  intersected  solids  are 
forms  that  grew  out  of  the  necessity  for  form  existence. 
The  difference  of  form  in  material  objects  is  the 
race  difference  of  matter  species.  The  intersection  of 
solids  is  like  a  marriage  for  a  new  form  to  come.  Every 
unconscious  bit  of  matter  is  still  conscious  enough  to 
want  to  be  the  form  of  some  geometric  identity.  Hence  it 
finds  a  place  for  itself  in  the  abstract  wandering  on- 
wardness  of  space  and  time.  Matter  remains 
not  dust-like  or  hovers  not  in  chaotic  atoms. 
Magnetism,  energj%  cohesion  make  form.  Such 
forms     destine     matter     and     determine     its     plastic 

[   68   ] 


poetic  character  and  its  quality  of  duration  in  the 
spiritual  domain  as  perceived  by  the  artist.  The 
correspondence  of  varied  forms,  simple  or  intricate, 
minute  or  colossal,  achieves  the  great  universal  unity, 
rhythm  or  that  greatest  of  energies  —  gravity  in  Being. 

The  inanimate  has  its  own  nature  of  resistance ;  it  has 
consistency  and  a  correspondence  through  an  inner  en- 
ergy,  as  humans  correspond  through  actions  and  words 
expressive  of  thought.  The  artist  must  commune  with 
matter  to  caress  it,  to  compel  it  into  a  desired  re-organ- 
ized form  —  or  a  unit  of  forms  —  the  essence  of  his  con- 
tact with  nature.  Matter  has  its  own  particular  form 
of  volition.  It  apprehends  the  relationships  of  weight, 
measure,  scale  and  direction  and  of  the  combination  of 
planes,  or  of  resistance  when  colored  and  exposed  to 
light.  As  weight,  dimension  or  energy  or  durability  are 
elements  irrespective  of  their  specific  embodiment,  place 
or  position,  so  ought  these  to  be  dealt  with  purely  as  only 
abstract  elements  or  potential  qualities  in  matter-form. 
This  affords  an  opening  into  the  very  eternity  of  form. 
These  infinite  variations  offer  the  greatest  possible 
means  for  arriving  at  a  realization  of  the  infinity  of  form. 

To  express  moods  that  stir  the  emotion  from  within 
as  does  music,  the  plastic  artist  when  he  conceives  of 
energetic  rhythmic  interlaced  forms  or  units  should 
be  much  more  moved  than  even  by  music.  It  is 
like  cementing  a  thought,  or  arresting  a  perfect  moment 
of  time,  or  like  giving  body  to  space,  or  solidity  to  air, 
or  colored  light  to  darkness.  An  artist  should  hope 
to  evoke  with  grains  of  matter  the  very  atoms  of  color 
and  time.  He  should  feel  as  though  he  empowered  the 
silent  with  speech  and  the  static  with  motion ;  and  should 

[   69   ] 


seem  to  angle  the  light  and  to  impregnate  the  three 
dimensions  with  a  spiritual  fourth  dimension.  If  not 
spiritually  conceived  or  transfigured  by  great  inspiration, 
matter  is  dead.  This  is  proved  by  many  monuments 
and  buildings,  ancient  and  modern,  wliich  are  only  so 
many  lifeless  lumps. 

Ai'chitecture,  while  abstract,  is  less  abstract  or 
subjective  than  the  form  the  subjective  sculptor  de- 
sires. Architecture  is  one  of  the  great  applied  arts. 
Utility,  even  in  its  grandest  efforts  or  achieve- 
ments, subjects  the  subjective  to  the  concrete  objective. 
Utility  or  application  often  introduces  that  dangerous 
difference  between  worth  and  value,  between  the  spir- 
itual and  the  material,  or  between  poetry  and  fact. 
Utility  makes  spirit  subservient  to  matter,  while  art 
makes  matter  yield  to  its  own  use. 

Each  abstract  form  is  at  once  in  itself  an  expression 
of  a  living  idea,  the  spirit  rhytlim  and  unity  of  form. 

Objects  in  vertical,  horizontal  or  oblique,  or  of 
whatever  form  or  quantity  evoking  our  senses  of  per- 
ception, are  proof  of  a  living  force  even  in  the  inanimate. 
It  is  this  very  energy  of  matter  that  one  should  hope  to 
make  spiritually  dynamic.  The  fact  that  even  the  most  in- 
significant objects  attract  our  attention  is  proof  of  a  form 
of  life  in  the  inanimate.  The  oblique  has  for  me  a  won- 
derful fascination.  In  it  one  finds  action  of  infinite  sur- 
prise, wonder  and  expectanc}^  It  is  the  more  stirring,  the 
most  significant  action  of  the  several  directions  including 
the  curve.  It  is  the  physical  or  material  so  charged  with 
the  poetry  of  form  that  it  awaken  the  spiritual  senses. 
It  is  this  state  or  position  or  volume  of  the  objects  of 
the  three  dimensions  whether  static  or  in  motion,  that 

[    70   ] 


gives  nucleus  to  scale,  to  weight  and  to  other  properties. 

It  is  through  an  intermarriage  of  forms,  enlivened 
each  with  its  own  destiny  of  position  —  horizontal,  ver- 
tical or  oblique  —  that  one  is  to  awaken  emotions  of  awe, 
grandeur  and  wonder,  even  to  exaltation.  And 
thus  I  am  brought  nearer  to  the  realization  of  a 
spiritual  rhythm,  an  inner  energy,  urging  the  unknown 
to  become  known;  manifesting  itself  at  its  best,  at  its 
highest,  when  fired  with  human  life. 

Art  is  the  very  fluid  of  energy  made  concrete  — 
the  rhytlunic  spiritual  energy  revealing  more  and 
more,  opening  infinity.  Or  it  is  like  the  ripples  on 
the  surface  of  water  caused  by  the  touch  of  the  fingers, 
or  like  the  vibrations  of  sound,  never,  never  to  end, 
only  to  blend  with  other  vibrations,  pulsing  onward, 
charging  as  it  were  infinity  with  infinity,  echo  waking 
echo,  and  so  on,  forever  on. 

It  should  be  the  aim  to  charge  matter,  to  invest  it 
with  emotion,  with  spirit,  with  mood,  with  reflection, 
even  with  a  hope  of  the  beyond  gained  from  experi- 
ence through  perception  of  the  worlds  of  form  without. 
In  these  abstract  forms  of  the  purely  plastic  domain, 
the  mental  and  spiritual  embodiment  are  constantly 
one.  The  sculpturesque  means  must  yield  to  the  poetic 
desire  to  reveal.  It  should  not  be  the  purpose  to  dupli- 
cate nature  or  to  represent  it.  Art  dies  when  the  nat- 
ural dominates.  I  believe  that  the  expression  of  an 
experience  must  go  further  than  the  experience  that 
gave  rise  to  the  expression  thereof.  The  expression 
of  an  experience  whatever  the  art  or  the  means  should 
give  rise  to  still  another,  a  newer  and  a  still  more  in- 
spiring experience. 

[    71    ] 


Art  Purpose 

N  conscious  being  there  is  purpose.  Pur- 
pose is  a  state  of  motion,  of  motion  col- 
ored by  hope,  the  hope  of  quality,  such 
as  makes  for  infinity.  Purpose  is  an 
inner  urge  to  know  one's  self  in  living 
activity.  Living-being  is  an  ambitious  spiritual  pur- 
pose to  transcend,  to  rise,  to  mount,  not  merely  to  shift 
position  or  to  change  view.  Living-being  has  a  deep 
docile  intensity  that  puts  us  on  the  journey  toward 
perfection  —  a  state  of  quality  that  waits  in  the  onward- 
ness  of  time.  It  ennobles  or  ripens  character  and  comes 
through  rare  and  high  personal  achievement  only. 
Of  the  cloth  achievement,  the  threads  are  drawn 
from  time.  For  there  is  no  perfection  —  no  end  to 
time,  no  end  to  achievement.  Perfection  or  achieve- 
ment moves  with  time  which  never  ends.  The  striving 
after  perfection,  the  very  journey,  is  the  reward  of  per- 
fection in  the  beyond.  Perfection  is  richer  that  cannot 
be  possessed.  The  desire  is  its  reward.  Perfection  will 
not  allow  itself  to  be  possessed.  And  like  time  —  the 
end  is  the  beginning.  Perfection  from  a  spiritual  point 
of  view  is  the  magnet  of  time. 

As  living-being  only  marks  time,  creative  living- 
being  colors  time.  Achievements  of  spiritual  worth 
mark  the  way  into  infinity.  Amassing  material  wealth 
or  power  is  merely  a  state  of  being  in  busyness.  It  is 
even  a  state  of  stand-stillness.  It  may  shift  matter 
or  property  from  point  to  point  in  a  chaotic  direction- 
less, purposeless  way.    It  is  merely  a  personal  definitely 


[    '3   ] 


limited  time-having  of  things.  Possession  or  covet- 
ousness  keeps  things  from  the  way  to  infinity. 
It  retards  motion  of  time.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
personal  material  possession.  If  so,  it  is  against  the 
law  of  spiritual  harmony,  for  it  causes  strife.  Spirit  is 
that  personal  possession,  having  in  its  nature  that  which 
gives  to  all  and  which  being  in  time  on  the  way  to  infin- 
ity, moves  to  intellectual  peace,  or  adjustment.  It  binds 
the  scattered  into  one  and  so  ever  intensifies  unity. 
Wisdom  is  the  right  of  everybody  in  whatever  state  of 
material  plane.  Having-being  finites  matter,  stops 
time,  loses  direction  and  proportion,  shuts  out  light; 
but  living-being  infinites  matter.  Having-being 
starves  and  shrinks;  living-being  flourishes  and  en- 
riches time  with  hope  of  the  infinite. 

True  liberation  and  the  democratization  of  the  races 
will  come  only  when  mankind  will  realize  that  sheer 
"possessing"  arrests  himian  radiation  and  causes 
animal  selfishness  and  fear,  while  art  ferments  human 
radiation  and  results  in  spiritual  universality  and 
brotherhood.  Matter  is  merely  matter;  it  lies  and  knows 
not.  Matter  inbreathed  with  spirit,  moves  and  tran- 
scends ;  it  illumines  darkness,  and  fills  emptiness,  and  en- 
livens even  the  vacuous.  Only  through  art  do  we  appre- 
hend what  would  otherwise  be  arid  and  spiritless, 
invisible  and  unheard.  By  taking  cognizance  of  matter 
through  art  principles  —  we  learn  to  know  life  better. 
The  best  of  life  goes  into  art.  Through  form  we  learn 
what  is  formless  and  colorless.  Through  art  we  learn 
grace  and  grandeur.  It  urges  us  therefore  to  create  and 
to  invest  the  inanimate  with  the  life  of  our  life,  with  our 
own  energy.  Art  forms  carry  us  from  sphere  to  sphere. 

[    74   ] 


A  vase  is  that  embodiment  of  hmnan  emotional  energy 
and  spirit  in  matter,  which  would  otherwise  wander  in 
chaotic  atoms  in  the  lostness  and  the  unknownness  of 
space  and  time.  So  are  other  forms  of  expression. 
Great  shafts  like  those  of  the  historic  Karnak  are  eternal 
living  plants  through  which  flow  heavenward  the  very 
juices  of  earth  and  the  spiritual  essences  of  man.  The 
great  temples  are  like  gardens  and  vineyards ;  the  great 
mosaics  and  tapestries  are  veritable  flower-beds  with 
lasting  aroma  and  color.  The  great  symphonies  are  the 
voices  of  invisible  and  angelic  spheres. 

Art  cannot  be,  will  not  be  possessed  or  monopolized. 
Art  is  the  one  great  universal  possession  and  gift.  Art 
will  give  herself  to  him  who  wants  her  and  needs  her. 
It  is  the  great  democratizing  force.  It  is  peace  giving. 
It  is  made  of  worth  only,  and  recognizes  worth  from 
whatever  sources  it  comes.  Art  is  transitional  —  it  adds 
worth  to  worthiness  and  is  ever  onward.  Ownership 
—  material  possession,  is  fixed  and  if  it  turns  not  into 
a  spiritual  having-being  and  giving,  it  stifles  and  decays. 

I  pass  the  flower  bed.  I  live  the  flowers,  their 
colors  and  fragrance.  This  is  pure  individual  having- 
being.  Leaving  the  flowers  for  others  to  live  them  in 
the  sense  that  I  did,  is  the  truest  kind  of  democracy. 
Things  of  beauty,  things  of  love,  things  of  worth,  and 
the  emotions  they  evoke,  are  universal-belonging,  and 
therefore  the  greatest  means  for  democracy.  Humanity 
has  yet  fully  to  learn  how  to  be  conscious  of  the  living 
spirit  in  the  inanimate  worlds.  This  they  will  learn 
through  an  appreciation  and  an  awareness  of  the  funda- 
mental art  forms.  This  they  will  learn  when  they 
know  how  to  discriminate  between  matter  value  and 

L   75    ] 


spiritual  worth.  Once  aware  of  this,  the  individual 
is  possessor  of  the  spirit  of  the  inanimate  and  the 
animated  and  this  is  the  living-possessing  and  the  univer- 
sal sharing.  Art  forms  make  the  spirit  bridge  between 
matter  and  soul.  This  is  the  gift  of  living  —  the  right 
of  every  human  being.  This  possessing  is  the  very  life 
process.  Robbing  humans  of  this  life-right  is  crim- 
inal for  it  foreruns  tyranny  and  slavery.  But 
the  human  spirit,  whether  imprisoned  or  denied,  in  the 
course  of  time,  bursts  the  imposed  matter-bounds  and 
the  soul  flames  into  art,  and  liberates  and  endows  all. 
It  is  a  proof  of  the  invincible  power  of  spirit- 
uality, of  expression,  of  living-possession,  when  art 
survives  and  re-appears  after  tyranny.  And  from  this 
we  can  infer  how  much  more  pure  humanity  might 
have  been,  had  matter  been  more  embodied  with 
spirit.  Has  not  the  best  of  human  energy  and  of 
life  been  wasted  on  war,  and  on  theft?  Art  affords  us 
this  contrast.  Only  after  a  terrible  calamity  and  a  reali- 
zation of  the  futility  of  possession  do  we  know  this 
better.  Greed  and  war  change  the  geographical  boun- 
daries of  countries,  but  spirit  is  measureless,  boundless, 
universal.  Spirit  or  art  form  induce  quality,  but  war 
or  greed  results  in  a  materialism  that  retards  the  onward- 
ness  and  ripeness  of  time,  and  wounds  and  destroys  the 
fruit  of  the  soul.  Greed  and  possession  are  the  enemies  of 
art.  War  is  the  symbol  of  the  materially  weak;  art  is 
the  symbol  of  the  spiritually  strong.  Art  removes 
boundaries;  for  it  is  universal.  War  or  materialism 
narrows  and  works  in  secrecy;  art  opens  and  universal- 
izes. Materialism  and  greed  poison  and  destroy  all 
human  tenderness.    Art  comes  from  the  very  heavens, 

[    76   ] 


soothes  the  heart,  clears  and  elevates  the  mind  and 
purifies.  Art  grooves  hard  into  materialism  and  makes 
a  path  for  the  soul.  It  neutralizes  and  personifies.  It 
is  the  very  antithesis  of  greed. 

The  materialist  asks  of  what  use  are  art  forms,  and 
the  infidel  asks  of  what  use  is  prayer.  Both  ask  the 
question  to  which  the  dumb  beasts  find  answer  in  the 
satisfaction  of  their  hunger.  Art  like  faith  cannot  be 
explained  away.  It  is  the  faith  found  in  feeling,  the  feel- 
ing that  comes  of  an  art  consciousness,  the  consciousness 
of  spirit  inherent  in  matter. 

Again,  the  art  purpose  is  the  great  human  purpose, 
the  great  spiritual  agency.  The  fundamental  principles 
of  art  are  the  very  beams  of  life.  Art  is  spirit  person- 
ified —  the  crystallization  of  universality.  See  how  in 
the  history  of  civilization  it  crowned  great  religious 
fervor,  how  it  embodied  deep  human  emotion  in  death- 
less forms.    Through  art,  time  filters,  as  it  were. 


f    77   ] 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

305  De  Neve  Drive  -  Parking  Lot  17  •  Box  951388 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library  from  which  It  was  borrowed. 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  Saji  Diego 

DATE  DUE 


':7i7*-.--_l9Z|: 


JUL  1  3  1977 


4i^o 


wnnim- 


Cl  39 


UCSD  Libr. 


Univers 

Souti 

Lib] 


